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THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


The 


Green Overcoat 


By 

HILAIRE BELLOC 


With Illustrations by 

G. K. CHESTERTON 


NEW YORK 

McBride, Nast & Company 
1912 




% 


All rights tcstneti 


Dc&<C«tc5 to 
MAURICE BARING. 


'V .'*'. • " ': ' .- ' 'i. '* ' ’•' *-..■- 


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DEDICATION. 


My dear Maurice, 

You wrote something called The Green 
Elephant, and I have written something called 
The Green Overcoat. 

It is on this account that I dedicate to you 
my work The Green Overcoat, although (and 
I take this opportunity of reproaching you 
for the same) you did not dedicate to me 
your work The Green Elephant. 

An overcoat and an elephant have much in 
common, and also, alas ! much in which they 
differ. An elephant can be taken off, and so 
can an overcoat ; but, on the other hand, an 
overcoat can be put on, and an elephant can 
not. I understand that your elephant was 
not a real elephant ; similarly my overcoat 
is not a real overcoat, but only an overcoat 
in a book. An overcoat is the largest kind 
of garment, and an elephant is the largest kind 
of beast, unless we admit the whale, which is 


vii 


DEDICATION. 


larger than the elephant, just as a dressing- 
gown is larger than an overcoat ; but this 
would lead me far ! Then, again, the elephant 
does not eat meat, or bite ; nor does an over- 
coat. He is most serviceable to man ; so is 
an overcoat. There are, however, rogue 
elephants which are worse than useless, and 
give less profit to their owner than if he had 
no elephant at all. The same is true of 
overcoats, notably of those which have got 
torn in the lining of the left armpit, so that 
the citizen on shoving his left arm therein 
gets it into a sort of eul-de-sac, which is 
French for blind-alley. 

The elephant is expensive, so is the over- 
cocit. The elephant is of a grave and settled 
expression, so is an overcoat. An overcoat 
hanging by itself upon a peg is a grave and 
sensible object, which in the words of the 
philosopher “ neither laughs nor is the cause 
of laughter.” So is an elephant encaged. 

Again, man in conjunction with the elephant 
is ennobled by that conjunction, whether he 
ride upon its back or upon its neck or walk 
by its side, as does the keeper at the Zoo. 
The same is true of overcoats, which, whether 
we have them upon our backs or carry them 
over our arms, add something to our 

viii 


DEDICATION. 


appearance. I could suggest many other 
points in common were this part of my work 
lucrative, and, as it were, in the business ; 
but it is not, and I must end. I might remind 
you that elephants probably grow old (though 
no man has lived to see it), that overcoats 
certainly do ; that elephants are of divers 
sex, and this is true also of the overcoat. 
On the other hand, an overcoat has no feet 
and it has two tails or none, whereas the 
elephant has four feet and but one tail, and 
that a very little one. 

I must wind up by telling you why I have 
written of an “ overcoat ” and not a “ great- 
coat." “ Greatcoat " is the more vernacular ; 
" overcoat " I think the more imperial. But 
that was not my reason. I wrote “ overcoat " 
because it was a word similar in scansion and 
almost equivalent in stress-scheme (wow !) to 
the word “ elephant." Of course, if I had 
considered length of syllable and vowel-value 
it would have been another matter, for 
"elephant" consists in three shorts, “over- 
coat" in a long, short and long. The first 
is a what-you-may-call-’um, and the second 
a thingumbob. 

But I did not consider vowel sounds, and 
I was indifierent to longs and shorts. My 


IX 


DEDICATION. 


endeavour was to copy you, and to have a 
title which would get people mixed up, so 
that the great hordes of cultivated men and 
women desiring to see your play should talk 
by mistake of The Green Overcoat. 

And then their aunts, or perhaps a prig- 
visitor, would say : “ Oh, no, that is the 

hook ! ” In this way the book would be 
boomed. That was my game. 

If people had done this sort of thing before 
it would not work now ; but they haven’t. 

Now, Maurice, I end this preface, for I 
cannot think of anything more to write. 


H. BELLOC. 


Contents 


CHAPTER I. 

In which the Green Overcoat takes a Journey 

CHAPTER II. 

In which a Philosopher wrestles with the 
Problem of Identity . . 

CHAPTER III. 

In which the Green Overcoat appears as a 
point of religion by not being there . 


Page 

13 


29 


46 


CHAPTER IV. 

In which it is seen that University training 

FITS ONE FOR A BUSINESS CAREER ... 67 

CHAPTER V. 

In which Solitude is unable to discover the 

CHARMS which SaGES HAVE SEEN IN HER FACE 84 

CHAPTER VI. 

In which Professor Higginson begins to taste 

THE sweets of FAME .... IO4 

chapter VII. 

In which Professor Higginson goes on tasting 

THEM ........ 135 

CHAPTER VIII. 

In which Professor Higginson gets those sweets 
BY THE wagon-load, AND ALSO HEARS HOW MeN 
ARE Made 158 

CHAPTER IX. 

In which the Green Overcoat begins to assert 

ITSELF .•••••«. ^75 


XI 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER X. 


Pag$ 


In which a Descendant of the Crusaders refuses 

TO harbour stolen goods . • t • i86 


CHAPTER XI. 

In which a Pole is less scrupulous , . . 204 

CHAPTER XII. 

In which the Readerkin will, if he has an ounce ^ 
OF brains, begin to catch the inevitable 
Denoumong of the Imbroglio . • .215 

CHAPTER XIII. 

In which the Subliminal Consciousness gives 

itself away . . . . • • . • 243 

CHAPTER XIV. : 

In which, incredible as it may seem, a non-Pole 

HAS THE better OF A POLE .... 264 

CHAPTER XV. j 

In which three young men eat, and not only 

EAT, BUT DRINK 274 

CHAPTER XVI. 

In which cross-examination is conducted ** en ^ 
Echelon,'* and if you don’t know what that 
means I can’t help you . . . .287 

CHAPTER XV;i! 

In which a Professor professes nothing, a" 
Lecture is not delivered, and yet something 
happens ....... 298 


CHAPTER XVI/I. 

In which the Green Overcoat triumphs and 

comes home , . . . . . *321 


xii 


The Green Overcoat. 


CHAPTER 1 . 

In which the Green Overcoat takes a Journey. 

Professor Higginson — to give him his true 
name — was a psychologist, celebrated through- 
out Europe, and recently attached to the 
modern and increasingly important University 
called the Guelph University, in the large 
manufacturing town of Ormeston. His 
stipend was £800 a year. 

He was a tall, thin man, exceedingly shy 
and nervous, with weary, print-worn eyes, 
which nearly always looked a little pained, 
and were generally turned uneasily towards 
the ground. He did not dress carefully. He 
was not young. He had a trick of keeping 
both- hands in his trouser pockets. He 
stooped somewhat at the shoulders, and wore 
a long, grey beard. He was a bachelor. 


13 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 

naturally affectionate by disposition, but 
capable of savagery when provoked by terror. 
His feet were exceedingly large, and his mind 
was nearly always occupied by the subject 
which he professed. 

This excellent man, in his ill-fitting evening 
suit, had just said good-bye after an agonised 
party, upon Monday, the 2nd of May, at the 
house of Sir John Perkin, a local merchant 
of ample but ill-merited fortune. 

It was as yet but midnight, the rooms were 
full, and he hoped to slip out early and 
almost unobserved. 

Professor Higginson sidled aimlessly into 
the study that was doing duty as a cloakroom, 
sidled out again on remembering that he had 
not left his things there, and next turned to 
gaze almost as aimlessly at a series of pegs 
on which he hoped to find a familiar slouch 
hat, rather greasy, and an equally familiar 
grey Inverness which was like his skin to 
him. The slouch hat was there. The 
Inverness was gone. 

Was it gone ? The Professor of Psychology 
was a learned man, and his sense of reality 
was not always exact. Had he come in that 
Inverness after all ? . . . The more he 

thought about it the less certain he was. 




THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


Ue remembered that the May night, though 
.'ery cold, had been fine as he came. He had 
no precise memory of taking off that Inverness 
or of hanging it up. He walked slowly, 
ruminating upon the great problem, towards 
the door of the hall ; he inwardly congratu- 
lated himself that there was no servant 
present, and that he could go through the 
dreadful ordeal of leaving the house without 
suffering the scrutiny of a human being. No 
carriage had yet drawn up. He opened the 
door, and was appalled to be met by a violent 
gust and a bitter, cold, driving rain. 

Now the Professor of Psychology was, like 
the domestic cat, of simple tastes, but he 
hated rain even more than does that animal. 
It bitterly disagreed with him, and worse 
still, the oddity of walking through the streets 
in evening clothes through a raging downpour, 
with a large expanse of white shirt all drenched, 
was more than his nerves could bear. 

He was turning round irresolutely to seek 
once again for that Inverness, which he was 
now more confident than ever was not there, 
when the Devil, who has great power in these 
affairs, presented to his eyes, cast negligently 
over a chair, a GREEN OVERCOAT of 
singular magnificence. 


15 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


The green of it was a subdued, a warm and 
a lovely green ; its cloth was soft and thick, ■ 
pliable and smooth ; the rich fur at the collar 
and cuffs was a promise of luxury in the 
lining. | 

Now the Devil during all Professor Higgin- | 
son’s life had had but trifling fun with him I 
until that memorable moment. The oppor- 
tunity, as the reader will soon discover, was 
(from the Devil’s point of view) remarkable 
and rare. More, far more, than Professor 
Higginson’s somewhat sterile soul was involved | 
in the issue. | 

The Green Overcoat appeared for a few I 
seconds seductive, then violently alluring, 
next — and in a very few seconds — irresistible. |! 

Professor Higginson shot a sin-laden and |j 
frightened glance towards the light and the || 
noise and the music within. No one was in || 
sight. Through the open door of the rooms, ij 
whence the sound of the party came loud and Ij 
fairly drunken, he saw no face turned his way. Ij 
The hall itself was deserted. Then he heard fl 
a hurl of wind, a dash of rain on the hall || 
window. With a rapidity worthy of a greater |l 
game, and to him most unusual, he whisked the || 
garment from the chair, slipped into thell 
shadow of the door, struggled into the Green « 


i6 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


Overcoat with a wriggle that seemed to him to 
last five weeks — ^it was, as a fact, a conjuror's 
trick for smartness — and it was on ! The 
Devil saw to it that it fitted. 

It was all right. He would pretend some 
mistake, and send it back the very first thing 
next morning ; nay, he would be an honest 
man, and send it back at once by a messenger 
the moment he found out his mistake on 
getting to his lodgings. So wealthy an over- 
coat could only belong to a great man — a man 
who would stay late, very late. Come, the 
Green Overcoat would be back again in that 
house before its owner had elected to move. 
He would be no wiser ! There was no harm 
done, and he could not walk as he was through 
the rain. 

Alas ! These plausible arguments proceeded, 
had the Professor but known it, from the 
Enemy of Souls ! He, the fallen archangel, 
foresaw that coming ruin to which his lanky 
and introspective victim was unhappily blind. 
Dons are cheap meat for Devils. 

The door^shut upon the learned man. He 
went striding out into the drenching storm, 
down the drive towards the public road. 
And as he went he carried a sense of wealth 
about him that was very pleasurable in spite 


2 


17 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 

of the weather. He had never known such 
raiment ! 

His way down the road to his lodgings would 
be a matter of a mile or more. The rain was 
intolerable. He was wondering as he reached 
the gate whether there was any chance of 
a cab at such an hour, when he was overjoyed 
to hear the purring of a taxi coming slowly up 
behind him. He turned at once and hailed it. 
The taxi halted, and drew up a little in front 
of a street light, so that the driver’s face was 
in shadow. He gave his address, opened the 
door and stooped to fold up his considerable 
stature into the vehicle. 

He had hardly shut the door, and as he 
was doing so, felt, or thought he felt, some 
obstacle before him, when the engine was let 
out at full speed. The cab whirled suddenly 
round in the opposite direction from that 
which he had ordered, and as Professor 
Higginson was jolted back by the jerk into 
his seat, his left arm clutched at what was 
certainly a human form ; at the same moment 
his struggling right arm clutched another, 
crouched apparently in the corner of the 
cab. 

He had just time to begin, “ I beg your ” 

when he felt each wrist held in a pair of strong 

i8 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


hands and a shawl or cloth tightening about 
his mouth. All that he next attempted to 
say was lost to himself and to the world. 
He gave one vigorous kick with his long legs ; 
before he could give a second his feet were held 
as firmly as his hands, and he felt what must 
have been a handkerchief being tied un- 
comfortably tightly round his ankles, while 
his wrists were still held in a grasp that 
suggested something professional. 

Professor Higginson’s thoughts were drawn 
out of their daily groove. His brain raced and 
pulsed, then halted, and projected one clear 
decision — which was to sit quite quiet and 
do nothing. 

The driver’s back showed a black square 
against the lamp-lit rain. He heard, or would 
hear, nothing. He paid no heed to the 
motions within, but steered furiously through 
the storm. For ten good minutes nothing 
changed. 

The beating rain outside blurred the window- 
panes, and the pace at which they drove 
forbade the Philosopher any but the vaguest 
guesses at the road and the whereabouts. 

The public lights of the town had long since 
been left behind ; rapid turns had begun to 
suggest country lanes, when, after a sharper 


19 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


jolt than usual, the machine curved warily 
through a gate into a narrow way, the brakes 
were put on sharply, the clutch was thrown 
out, and the cab stopped dead. It was halted 
and its machine was panting down in some 
garden, the poverty and neglect of which 
glared under the acetylene lamps. The 
disordered, weedy gravel of the place and its 
ragged laurels stood out unnaturally, framed 
in the thick darkness. The edge of the light 
just caught the faded brick corner of an old 
house. 

Professor Higginson had barely a second in 
which to note a flight of four dirty stone steps 
leading to a door in the shadow, when his 
captors spoke for the first time. 

“Will you go quietly?” said the ones 
crouching before him — he that had tied hisi^ 
ankles. 

The Professor assented through his gag with" 
a voice like the distant lowing of a cow. The,' 
strong grip that held his wrists pulled his arms 
behind him, the taxi door was opened, and he 
was thrust out, still held by the hands. He 
poised himself upon his bound feet, and 
whoever it was that had spoken — he had a 
strong, young voice, and looked broad and 
powerful in the half-light behind the lamps — 


20 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


began unfastening the handkerchief at his 
ankles. Professor Higginson was not a 
soldier. He was of the Academies. He broke 
his parole. 

The moment his feet were free he launched 
a vigorous kick at his releaser (who hardly 
dodged it), emitted through his gag a dull 
sound full of fury, and at the same instant 
found himself bumped violently upon the 
ground with his legs threshing the air in all 
directions. It was the gentleman who held 
his wrists behind him that was the author of 
this manoeuvre, and even as he achieved it 
he piped out in a curious high voice that 
contrasted strangely with the strength he had 
just proved — 

“ Hit him, Jimmy ! Hit him in the face ! ” 

“Not yet,” said Jimmy ominously. “ Jerk 
him up, Melba ! ” 

At some expense to the Professor’s nerves 
Melba obeyed, and the learned Pragmatist 
found himself once more upon his feet. He 
kicked out vigorously behind, but only met 
the air. It was as he had dreaded ! He had 
to deal with professionals ! 

“ All right, Jimmy ? ” came in a young, well- 
Englished and rather tired drawl from the 
driver. 


21 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT, 


The engine was still panting slightly. 

“Yes, Charlie,” said Jimmy cheerfully. 
“ Off you go ! ” 

“ Good night,” said the young, well- 
Englished and rather tired drawl again. 

The clutch caught, the engine throbbed 
faster, the untidy gravel crunched under the 
motor as it turned a half circle to find the 
gate, and in doing so cast a moment of fierce 
light upon the stained and dirty door of the 
house. 

The gagged victim noted that the door was 
open : there had been preparation, and the 
signs of it did not reassure him. 

His captor thrust him against that door, into 
the dark hall within. The other one, the one 
he had heard called “ Jimmy ” followed, shut 
the door, and struck a match. 

There was revealed in the flare a passage 
between perfectly bare walls, dusty, un- 
carpeted floor boards, still bearing the faint 
marks of staining at their edges, a flight of 
stairs with flimsy bannisters, many of them 
broken — for the rest, nothingness. 

“ Melba ” (if I may call that gentleman by 
the name his associate had given him) was 
busy at the Professor’s wrists with something 
more business-like than a handkerchief. He 


22 


I 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


was tying them up scientifically enough (and 
very tight) with a piece of box-cord. 

Jimmy, opening the door of a room on the 
ground floor that gave'pnto this deserted 
passage, lit a candle within. Mr. Higginson 
found himself pushed through that door on to 
a chair in the room beyond. A moment later 
he was bound to that chair, corded up in a 
manner uncomfortably secure to its rungs and 
back by his ankles, elbows and knees. It was 
Melba that did the deed. Jimmy, coming in 
after, turned the key in the door, and joined 
his companion. Then the pair of them stood 
gazing at their victim for a moment, and the 
Professor had his first opportunity in all that 
bewildering night of discovering what kind 
of beings he had to deal with. 

Melba was a stout, rather pasty-faced young 
man, with fat cheeks and blue, protuberant 
eyes, not ill-natured. He had very light, 
straight hair, and his face in repose seemed 
to clothe itself with a half smile which was 
permanent. It was surprising that such a 
figure should have that strength of forearm 
which the Philosopher had unfortunately 
experienced. But there is no telling a man 
till he strips, and Melba, who might very well 
have been a young lounger of the French 


23 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


Boulevards, was, as a matter of fact, an 
oarsman of an English University. He rowed. 
It was his chief recreation. He also read 
French novels, and was a fair hand at writing 
mechanical verse. But that is by the way, 
nor could the Professor as yet guess anything 
of this. He glared at the youth over his gag 
and took him in. 

Jimmy was quite another pair of shoes. 
He was tall also, but clean cut and very dark, 
with the black eyes and hair and fresh colour- 
ing of a Gael. No trace of his native accent 
remained with him. Indeed, he had been 
born south of the border, but his supple 
strength and the balance of his body were those 
of the mountains. He had race. Unlike his 
colleague, he looked as strong as he was, 
Jimmy, if you care to know it, did not row ; 
he swam and dived. He swam and dived 
with remarkable excellence, and was the 
champion, or whatever it is called, of some 
district or other of considerable size. He was 
also of the University that had nourished 
Melba — Cambridge . 

These two young men, a little blown, and 
perhaps a little excited, but manfully con- 
cealing their emotions under a gentlemanly 
indifference, seated themselves on either side 


24 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


of a table with the Professor gagged and 
bound upon the chair before them. So seated, 
they watched their prey. 

Melba slowly filled an enormous pipe from 
an enormous pouch, keeping his round, blue 
eyes fixed and ready for any movement upon 
the Professor’s part. 

Jimmy lit a black cigarette with some 
affectation, blew a cloud of thin, blue smoke, 
and addressed the prisoner — 

“ Before we come to business, Brassington," 
he said, “ how will you behave if we ungag 
you ? ” 

An appreciative and pacifist lowing pro- 
ceeded from the gag. 

“ That ’s all very well,” broke in Melba in 
his falsetto, “ last time you said that you 
broke your word ! ” 

“ Wmmmmmm ! ” replied the Professor, 
shaking his head in emphatic negation. 

“ Yes, but you did,” continued Melba 
shrilly. “You tried to kick Jimmy, and yon 
tried to kick me, too, after I dumped you.” 

Jimmy waved his hand at Melba, command- 
ing silence. 

“ Look here, sir,” he said, “ we had to do^ 
it. We don’t like it, and in a way we’re sorry ; 
but we had to.” 


25 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


The Professor recalled all that he had read 
of lunacy in its various forms (and that was a 
great deal more than was good for him), but 
he could see no trace of insanity in either 
of the two faces before him. If anything, 
the innocence of youth which they betrayed, 
coupled with an obviously strained and 
unnatural determination, was quite the other 
way. 

Melba chimed in with his high voice again — 

“ And lucky you didn’t get something 
worse ! ” 

“ Don’t, Melba ! ” said Jimmy authorita- 
tively. 

He was evidently the moderate man of the 
two, the man of judgment, and instinctively 
the learned victim determined to lean upon 
him in whatever incongruous adventures 
might threaten. 

“ We had to do it,” continued Jimmy, 
“ because there wasn’t any law. Mind you, 
we haven’t done this without asking ! But 
when there isn’t any law you have to take the 
law into your own hands, haven’t you, 
Melba ? ” he said, turning to his accomplice. 

“ Yes,” piped Melba, “ civil and criminal. 
He ought to have a lathering.” 

His blue, prominent eyes had a glare of 


26 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


ferocity in them, and Professor Higginson 
hated him in his heart. 

Jimmy again assumed control. 

“If there had been a law, sir, we ’d have 
sued you. We are sorry ” (this repetition a 
little pompously) “ and we do not want to 
expose you. Personally,” he added, flicking 
the ash from his cigarette and putting on the 
man-of- the- world, “ I find it an ungrateful 
thing to constrain an older man. But it will 
all be over soon, and what is more, we will do 
it decently if you pay like a gentleman.” 

At the word “ pay ” Professor Higginson’ s 
inexperience of the world convinced him that 
he was in the hands of criminals. He had 
read in certain detective stories how criminals 
were not, as some imagined, men universally 
deprived of collars, clad in woollen caps and 
armed with bludgeons, nor without exception 
of the uncultivated classes. He could re- 
member many cases (in fiction) of the 
gentleman-criminal, nay, of the precocious 
gentleman-criminal — and apparently these 
were of the tribe. 

For the second time that evening he came 
to a rapid decision and determined to pay. 

He had upon him thirty shillings in gold, it 
was a sovereign and half sovereign, in the 


27 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


right-hand waistcoat pocket of his evening 
clothes, and he thought he also had in the 
right-hand trousers pocket a few loose shillings 
and coppers. It was a great deal to sacrifice. 
For all he knew, it was compounding a felony ; 
but he would risk that. He would think of 
it as a rather high hotel bill — and he would be 
free ! He nodded his gagged head, mooed cheer- 
fully, and looked acquiescent with his eyes. 

“ That ’s right ! ” said Jimmy, greatly 
relieved (for in his heart he had never dared 
hope for so easy a solution). “ That 's right ! ” 
and he sighed contentedly. “ That ’s right,” 
he repeated for the third time. “ We are 
really very sorry, sir ! But it dl seem all right 
afterwards. When you have kept your side of 
the bargain we shall certainly keep ours.” He 
said it courteously. "All we want is the money, 
and when we have the money and you are 
free, why, sir, I hope you will not grudge us 
what we have done.” 

So it was all going to end happily after all ? 
The Professor almost felt himself at liberty 
again, hurrying home through the night — 
hurrying anywhere at his free will, loosed from 
that accursed place, when Jimmy added — 

" Of course, you will have to sign the 
letter ? ” 


28 


CHAPTER II. 


In which a Philosopher wrestles with the Problem 
of Identity. 

The Professor was in deeper water than ever. 
He had been called some name or other at 
the beginning of this conversation. What 
name he could not remember. What the 
friendlier of the two beasts meant by “a 
letter ” he could not conceive until Jimmy, 
continuing, partly enlightened him. 

“You will have to sign the brief note we 
have drafted here to accompany your pay- 
ment. It ’s obvious.” 

Professor Higginson dimly guessed that he 
was wanted to safeguard them in some way 
against the consequences of his kidnapping. 

. . . Well, he had made up his mind, and 
he would not depart from it. He nodded 
again cheerfully enough, and his eyes were as 
acquiescent as ever. 

Jimmy leaned forward, and in set tones of 
some gravity, said formally — 

“ We understand, this gentleman and I, 


29 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


that you acknowledge the payment due to us, 
and if we take off the — er — the impediment 
which we were compelled to put over your 
mouth, you will act up to your promise and 
you will pay us ? ” 

For the third time the Professor nodded 
vigorously. 

“ And you will sign the note ? ” 

He nodded even more vigorously once 
again. 

“ Very well,” said Jimmy in the tone of a 
great arbitrator who has managed to settle 
matters without unpleasantness. “ Melba, 
be good enough to untie your aunt’s shawl, 
which for the moment prevents this gentleman 
from performing his promise by word of 
mouth.” 

Melba did as he was bid, jerking — as Mr. 
Higginson thought — the knot in the fabric 
rather ungently. He treasured it up against 
him. 

The shawl was off, Melba was seated again, 
and Professor Higginson breathed the night 
air untainted by the savour of an ancient 
human garment, and an aunt’s at that. 

“ I need not repeat all I have just been 
saying,” said Jimmy, “ but you must confirm 
it before we go further.” 


30 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


"I do,” said the Professor, with a curiously ^ 
successful affectation of cheerfulness for so 
untrained an actor. “Yes, certainly, gentle- 
men, I confirm it.” 

There was, if anything, a little precipitancy 
in his manner, as though he were eager to pay, 
as he most certainly was to get rid of those 
ropes round his arms and legs. 

There was another thing bothering the 
Pragmatist. The Green Overcoat, which still 
wrapped him all about, was being woefully 
delayed. If the delay lasted much longer the 
owner might miss it . . . and then, the 

tight cords at its elbows were doing it no good. 
They might actually be marking it. The 
thought made Professor Higginson very un- 
comfortable indeed. He had no idea whose 
it was, but it certainly belonged to someone 
of importance. ... He wished he had 
never seen it. 

He was not to be the last to wish that, but 
Hell is a hard taskmaster and the Professor 
was caught. 

"We think,” said Jimmy a little pompously, 

“ at least, I think ” (after glancing at 

Melba). 

“ I don’t,” said Melba. 

“ Well, I think,” continued Jimmy, "and I 



THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


think we ought to think, that you are doing 
the right thing, and, well, I like to tell you so.” 

The relations between Jimmy and his 
prisoner were getting almost cordial. He 
pushed the table so that that prisoner, when 
he was untied, should be able to write upon 
it. He put before him a type-written sheet 
of note-paper, an envelope, an ink-bottle, and 
a pen, which, with the exception of the 
benches on which he and his companion sat, 
the table and the chair, were all the furniture 
the place contained. 

“ And now, sir,” added Jimmy, going 
behind the Psychologist and releasing his 
elbows, “ now, sir ” (here he wound the rope 
round the Professor’s waist, secured it, and 
left his legs still tied to the chair rungs), 
” now, sir, perhaps we can come to business ! ” 

Poor Mr. Higginson had never been so 
cramped in his life. He was far from young. 
The circulation in his lower arms had almost 
stopped. He brought them forward pain- 
fully and slowly and composed them upon 
the table, then his right hand slowly sought 
his waistcoat pocket, where reposed the 
sovereign and half-sovereign of his ransom. 

“ Of course,” he began, intending to explain 
the smallness of the sum. for he could not but 


3 


33 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


feel that it was very little gold for so con- 
siderable a circumstance of paper formalities 

and violence, “ of course ” when Jimmy 

interrupted him. 

“ I need not tell you the sum,” said that 
youth rather coldly. 

“Oh, no,” twittered Melba, “ he knows 
that well enough ! ” Then added, “ G-r-r-r ! ” 
as in anger at a dog. 

“Well — er — gentlemen, I confess” — began 
Mr. Higginson, hesitating 

“ To be frank,” said Jimmy rather sharply, 
“ we all three know the sum perfectly well, 
and you perhaps, sir, with your business 
habits and your really peculiar ideas upon 
honour, best of all. It 's two thousand 
pounds,” he concluded calmly. 

“Two thousand pounds?” shrieked the 
Professor. 

“ What did you expect ? ” broke in Melba 
an octave higher. “ A bonus and a presenta- 
tion gold watch ? ” 

“ Two thousand pounds ! ” repeated the 
bewildered Philosopher in a gasping undertone. 

“Yes,” rapped out Jimmy smartly, 
“ two thousand pounds ! . . . Really ! 

After all that has passed ” 

“ But,” shouted the Professor wildly, saying 


34 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


the first words that came to him, “ I haven’t 
got such a sum in the world. I — I don’t know 
what you mean ? ” 

Jimmy’s face took on a very severe and 
dreadful expression. 

“ Mr. Brassington,” he began in a slow and 
modulated tone. 

“I’m not Mr. Brassington, whoever Mr. 
Brassington may be,’’ protested the unhappy 
victim, half understanding the portentous 
error. “ What on earth do you take me for ? ’’ 

Jimmy by this time was in a mood to stand 
no nonsense. 

“ Mr. Brassington,’’ he said, “ you broke 
your word to us once this evening when you 
k eked out at Melba, and that ought to have 
been a lesson to me. I was foolish enough to 
believe you when you gave your word a second 
time. I certainly believed it when you gave 
it a third time after we released you.’’ (It 
was a very partial release, but no matter.) 
“ Now,’’ said he, setting his lips firmly, “ if 
you try to shuffie out of the main matter, I 
warn you it will be the worse for you, very 
much the worse for you, indeed. You will be 
good enough to sign us a cheque for two 
thousand pounds, and to sign the type-written 
acknowledgment in front of you.” 


35 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


Men in bewilderment do foolish things even 
when they are men of judgment, and Professor 
Higginson certainly was not that. His next 
words were fatal. 

“ Do you suppose I carry a cheque-book on 
me ? " he roared. 

“ Melba,” said Jimmy quietly, in the tones 
of a general officer commanding an orderly, 
“ go through him.” 

The Professor having said a foolish word, 
followed it by a still more foolish action. He 
dived into the right-hand pocket of the Green 
Overcoat with a gesture purely instinctive. 
Melba was upon him like a fat hawk, almost 
wrenched his arm from its socket, and drew 
from that right-hand pocket a noble great 
cheque-book of a brilliant red, with a leather 
backing such as few cheque-books possess, 
and having printed on it in bold plutocratic 
characters — 

“ John Brassington, Esqr., 

‘ Lauderdale,’ 

Crampton Park, Ormeston.” 

Melba conveyed the cheque-book solemnly 
to Jimmy, and the two young men sat down 
again opposite their involuntary creditor. 


36 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


spreading it out open before them in an 
impressive manner. 

“ Mr. Brassington,” said Jimmy, “ what 
do I see here ? Everything that I should 
have expected from a man of your prominence 
in the business world and of your known 
careful habits. I see neatly written upon 
the fly-leaf, ‘ Private Account,’ and the few 
counterfoils to the cheques already drawn 
carefully noted. I perceive,” continued 
Jimmy, summing up boldly, “ the sum of 
marked ‘ self ’ upon the second of this month. 
The object of your munificence does not 
surprise me. Upon the next counterfoil I see 
marked £17'^ los. It is in settlement of a 
bill — a garage bill. I am glad to see that you 
recognise and pay some of your debts. The 
third counterfoil,” he said, peering more 
closely, ” relates to a cheque made out only 
yesterday. It is for £5, and appears to have 
been sent to your son, who, as you know, is 
our honoured friend.” 

“ I protest ...” interrupted Professor 
Higginson loudly. 

” At your peril ! ” retorted Melba. 

“You will do well, Mr. Brassington, to let 
me finish what I have to say,” continued 
Jimmy. “ I say your son, our honoured 


37 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


friend, as you know well — only too well ! 
These three cheques are your concern, not 
ours. No further cheque has been drawn, 
and on the fourth cheque form, Mr. Brassing- 
ton, you will be good enough to sign your 
name. You will make it out to James 
McAuley — a small c and a big A, if you 
please ; an ey, not an a — in your letters you 
did not do me the courtesy to spell my name 
as I sign it. You will then hand me the 
instrument, and I will settle with my 
friend.” 

At the words “ my friend ” he waved 
courteously to Melba, gave a ridiculous little 
bow, which in his youthful folly he imagined 
to be dignified. 

The Professor sat stolidly and said nothing. 
His thoughts hurried confusedly within him, 
and the one that ran fastest was, “ I am in a 
hole ! ” 

“ I do assure you, gentlemen,” he said at 
last, “ that there is some great mistake. I 
have no doubt that — that a Mr. Brassington 
owes you the money, no doubt at all. And 
perhaps you were even justified in the very 
strong steps you took to recover it. I should 
be the last to blame you.” (The liar !) ” But 
as I am not Mr. Brassington, but, if you want 


38 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


to know, Professor Higginson, of the Guelph 
University, I cannot oblige you.” 

When the Professor had thus delivered 
himself there was a further silence, only inter- 
rupted by Melba’s addressing to him a very 
offensive epithet. “ Swine ! ” he said. 

“ Are we to understand, Mr. Brassington,” 
said Jimmy, when he had considered the 
matter, ” that after all that you have said 
you refuse to sign ? Did you imagine ” (this 
with rising anger in his voice) ” that we 
would compromise for a smaller sum ? ” 

“ I tell you I am not Mr. Brassington ! ” 
answered the Psychologist tartly. 

“ Oh ! ” returned Jimmy, now thoroughly 
aroused and as naturally as could be, ” and 
you aren’t wearing Mr. Brassington’s clothes, 
Brassington, are you ? And this isn’t Mr. 
Brassington’s cheque-book, is it, Brassington ? 
And you ’re not a confounded old liar as well 
as a cursed puritanical thief ? Now, look 
here, if you don’t sign now, you ’ll be kept 
here till you do. You ’ll be locked up without 
food, except just the bread and water to keep 
you alive ; and if you trust to your absence 
being noticed, I can tell you it won’t be. We 
know all about that. You were going to 
Belgium for a week, weren’t you, by the night 


39 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


train to London ? You were taking no 
luggage, because you were going to pick up 
a bag at your London office, as you always 
do on these business journeys. You were 
going on business, and I only hope the busi- 
ness will wait. Oh, we know all about it, 
Brassington ! We have a clear week ahead 
of us, and you won’t only get bread and water 
in that week ; and I don’t suppose anybody 
would bother if we made the week ten days.” 

I have already mentioned in the course of 
this painful narrative the name of the Infernal 
Power. My reader will be the less surprised 
to follow the process of Professor Higginson’s 
mind in this terrible crux. He sat there 
internally collapsed and externally nothing 
very grand. His two masters, stern and 
immovable, watched him from beyond the 
table with its one candle. It was deep night. 
There was no sound save the lashing of the 
storm against the window-panes. 

He first considered his dear home (which 
was a pair of rooms in a lodging in Tugela 
Street, quite close to his work). Then there 
came into his mind the prospect of sleepless 
nights in a bare room, of bread and water, 
and worse. . . . 

What was “ worse ” ? 


40 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


His resolution sank and sank. The process 
of his thought continued. The eyes of the 
two young men, hateful and determined, 
almost hypnotised him. 

If the money of this ridiculous John Brass- 
ington, whoever he might be, was there in his 
pocket, he would stand firm. He hoped he 
would stand firm. But after all, it was not 
money. It was only a bit of paper. He 
would be able to make the thing right. . . . 
He was very ignorant of such things, but he 
knew it took some little time to clear a 
cheque. ... He remembered someone 
telling him that it took three days, and inci- 
dentally he grotesquely remembered the same 
authority telling him that every cheque cost 
the bank sevenpence. . . . The rope hurt 

damnably, and he was a man who could not 
bear to miss his sleep, it made him ill. . . . 
And he was feeling very ill already. He could 
carefully note the number of the cheque, 
anyhow. Yes, he could do that. He had 
this man Brassington’s address. He had 
the name of the bank. It was on the cheques. 
He would have the courage to expose the 
whole business in the morning. He would 
stop that cheque. He clearly remembered 
the Senate of the University having made a 


4.1 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


mistake two years before and how the cheque 
was stopped. ... It was a perfectly easy 
business. ... Of course, the actual signing 
of another man’s name is an unpleasant thing 
for the fingers to do, but that is only nervous- 
ness — next door to superstition. One must 
be guided by reason. Ultimately it would 
do no harm at all, for the cheque would never 
be cleared. 

Professor Higginson leant lovingly upon 
that word “ cleared.” It had a technical, 
salutary sound. It was his haven of refuge. 
Cheques had to go up to London, hadn’t 
they ? and to go to a place called a Clearing 
House ? He knew that much, though 
economics were not his department of learning. 
He knew that much, and he was rather proud 
of it — as Professors are of knowing something 
outside their beat. 

While the Mystery of Evil was thus pressing 
its frontal assault on poor Professor Higgin- 
son’s soul, that soul was suddenly attacked in 
flank by a brilliant thought : the cheque 
would enable him to trace his tormentors ! 

Come, that really was a brilliant thought ! 
He was prouder of himself than ever. He 
would be actually aiding justice if he signed ! 
The police could always track down someone 


42 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


where there was paper concerned. No one 
could escape the hands of British Law if he 
had once given himself away in a written 
document ! 

This flank attack of the Evil One determined 
the Philosopher. In a subdued voice he broke 
the long silence. He said — 

“ Give me the pen \ ” 

Jimmy solemnly dipped the pen in the ink 
and handed it to him, not releasing the cheque- 
book, but tearing out the cheque form for 
him to sign ; and as he did so the unseen 
Serpent smiled. In a hand as bold as he could 
assume Professor Higginson deliberately 
wrote at the bottom right hand-corner the 
fatal words “ John Brassington.” 

He was beginning to fill in the amount, when 
to his astonishment the cheque was snatched 
from his hands, while Jimmy thundered out — 
“ Do you suppose, sir, that you can deceive 
us in such a childish way as that ? Does a 
man ever sign his cheque like a copybook ? " 
He glared at the signature. 

“ It ’s faked I That 's no more your signa- 
ture, Old Brassington, than it ’s mine ! ” he 
shouted. “ That 's how you write.” 

With the words he pulled a note from his 
pocket and tossed it to the unhappy man. 


43 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


Melba made himself pleasant by an inter- 
jection — 

“ What a vile old shuffler it is ! ” he said. 

And Mr. Higginson saw written on the note, 
dated but a week before — 

“ James Macaulay, Esq., 

“ Sir, 

“ I will have no further correspondence 
with you upon the matter. 

“ I am, 

“ Your obedient Servant, 

“ J. Brassington.” 

It was a strong, hard but rapid hand, the 
hand of a man who had done much clerk's 
work in his youth. It had certainly no re- 
semblance to the signature which the Psy- 
chologist had appended to the cheque form, 
and that form now lay torn into twenty 
pieces by the angry Jimmy, who had also 
torn up the counterfoil and presented him 
with another cheque. 

“ I can’t do it, gentlemen ! ” he said 
firmly — ^it was indeed too true — “ I can’t 
do it ! ” 

Melba jumped up suddenly. 


44 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“I’m not going to waste any more time 
with the old blighter ! ’’ he said shrilly. 

Come on, Jimmy ! ’’ and Jimmy yielded. 

They blew out the candle, left the room 
with a curse, turning the key in the lock from 
the outside, and the unfortunate Mr. Higginson 
was left bound tightly to his chair in complete 
darkness, and I am sorry to say upon the verge 
of tears. 

Nature had done what virtue could not do 
and the Professor was stumped. 


45 


CHAPTER III. 


In which the Green Overcoat appears as a point 
of religion by not being there. 

In the smoking-room of Sir John Perkin’s 
house upon the same evening of Monday, the 
2nd of May, sat together in conversation a 
merchant and a friend of his, no younger, 
a man whose name was Charles Kirby, whose 
profession was that of a solicitor. The name 
of the merchant who had retired apart to enjoy 
with this friend a reasonable and useful 
conversation, was Mr. John Brassington. He 
was wealthy, he dealt in leather ; he was a 
pillar of the town of Ormeston, he had been 
its mayor. He was an honest man, which is 
no less than to say the noblest work of God. 

Mr. John Brassington was, in this month of 
May, sixty years of age. He was tall, but 
broad in shoulder though not stout. He 
carried the square grey whiskers of a forgotten 
period in social history. He had inherited 
from his father, also a mayor of Ormeston, 
that good business in the leather trade ; it was 


46 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


a business he had vastly increased. He had 
not been guilty in the whole of his life of any 
act of meanness or of treachery where a 
competitor was concerned, nor of any act of 
harshness in the relations between himself 
and any of his subordinates. His expression 
was in one way determined, in another rather 
troubled and uncertain ; by which I mean 
that there were strong lines round the mouth 
which displayed a habit of decision in business 
affairs, some power of self-control, and a well 
ordered life ; but his lips were mobile and 
betrayed not a little experience of suffering, to 
which we must attribute certain extremes 
which his friends thought amiable, but which 
his critics (for he had no enemies) detested. 

Mr. Brassington had married at thirty-one 
years of age a woman quiet in demeanour, and 
in no way remarkable for any special talent or 
charm. She was the daughter of a clergyman 
in the town. She brought him a complete 
happiness lasting for four years. She bore 
him one child, and shortly after the birth of 
that child, a son, she died. 

Now Mr. Brassington, like most of his kind, 
was a man of strong and secret emotions. 
He loved his country, he was attached to the 
pictures which the public press afforded him 


47 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


of his political leader, and he adored his wife. 
Her death was so sudden, the habit of his 
married life, though short, had struck so deep 
a root in him, that from the moment of losing 
her he changed inwardly, and there began to 
appear in him those little exaggerations of 
which I have spoken. The best of these was 
too anxious an attachment to the son who must 
inherit his wealth. The next best a habit of 
giving rather too large and unexpected sums 
of money to objects which rather too suddenly 
struck him as worthy. To these habits of 
mind he had added excursions into particular 
fields of morals. In one phase he had been 
a teetotaller. He escaped from this only to 
fall into the Anti-Foreign- Atrocities fever. He 
read Tolstoy for one year, and then passed 
from that emotion into a curious fit of land 
nationalisation. Finally, he settled down for 
good into the Anti-Gambling groove. 

By the time this last spiritual adventure 
had befallen Mr. Brassington he was nearer 
fifty than forty years of age, and the detesta- 
tion of games of hazard was to provide him 
for the rest of his life with such moral occupa- 
tion as his temperament demanded. 

Certain insignificant but marked idiosyn- 
crasies in his dress accompanied this violence 


48 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


of moral emotion. For some reason best 
known to himself, he never carried an 
umbrella or a walking-stick. He w^ore driving 
gloves upon every possible occasion, suitable 
and unsuitable, and he affected in particular, 
in all weathers not intolerably warm, a 
remarkable type of Green Overcoat with which 
the reader is already sufficiently acquainted. 
The irreverent youth of his acquaintance had 
given it a number of nicknames, and had 
established a series in the lineage of this 
garment, for as each overcoat grew old it was 
regularly replaced by a new one of precisely 
the same cloth and dye, and lined with the 
same expensive fur. 

He told not a soul — only his chief friend 
and (of course) his servants had divined it — 
but Mr. Brassington lent to that Green 
Overcoat such private worship as the 
benighted give their gods. It was a secret 
and strange foible. He gave to it in its 
recurrent and successive births power of 
fortune and misfortune. Without it, he would 
have dreaded bankruptcy or disease. In the 
hands of others, he thought it capable of 
carrying a curse. 

The son to whom his affections were so 
deeply devoted bore the three names of 


4 


49 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


Algernon Sawby Leonidas (Sawby had been 
his mother’s family name), and was now 
grown up to manhood. He had been at 
Cambridge, had taken his degree the year 
before, but had lingered off and on for his 
rowing, and “ kept his fifth year.” He divided 
his time between London lodgings and the last 
requirements of his college. 

On that day in May with which I am dealing 
it was to consult upon this son of his that 
Mr. Brassington had left the crowd at Sir 
John Perkin’s and had shut himself with 
Charles Kirby into the smoking-room. 

Mr. Kirby was listening, for the fifteenth or 
twentieth time, to his friend’s views upon 
Algernon Sawby Leonidas, which lad, in 
distant Cambridge, was at that moment doing 
precisely what his father and his father’s 
lawyer were about, drinking port, but with no 
such long and honest life behind him as theirs. 

It was Mr. Kirby’s way to listen to anything 
his friends might have to say — ^it relieved 
them and did not hurt him. In the ordinary 
way he cared nothing whether he was hearing 
a friend’s tale for the first or for the hundredth 
time ; he had no nerves where friendship was 
concerned, and friendship was his hobby. 
But in this late evening he did feel a movement 


50 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


of irritation at hearing once again in full 
detail the plans for Algernon’s life spun out 
in their regular order, as though they were 
matter for novel advice. 

Mr. Brassington was at it again — the old, 
familiar story ! How, properly speaking, the 
Queen should have knighted him when she 
came to Ormeston during his mayoralty ; how, 
anyhow. King Edward might have given him 
a baronetcy, considering all he had done 
during the war. How he didn’t want it for 
himself, but he thought it would steady his 
son. How he would have nothing to do with 
paying for such things ; how he had heard that 
the usual price was £25,000 ; how that was 
robbing his son ! Robbing his son, sir ! Robbing 
his son of a thousand pounds a year, sir ! 
How Mr. Brassington would have that 
baronetcy given him for the sake of his son, of 
hearty goodwill, or not at all. 

Mr. Kirby listened, more and more bored. 

" I ’ve told you, Brassington, twenty times ! 
They came to me about it and you lost your 
temper. They came to me about it again the 
other day, and it’s yours for the asking, only, 
hang it all! you must do something public 
again, they must have a peg to hang it on.” 

Whereat Mr. Kirby’s closest and oldest 


51 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


friend went at him again, recited the baronetcy 
grievance at full length once more, and 
concluded once more with his views upon 
Algernon Sawby Leonidas. 

When Mr. Brassington had come to the end 
of a sentence and made something of a pause, 
Mr. Kirby said — 

“I thought you were going to Belgium ? ” 

Mr. Brassington was a little pained. 

“ I have arranged to take the night mail,” 
he said gravely. ” I shall walk down. Will 
you come to the station with me ? ” 

” Oh, yes ! ” said Mr. Kirby briskly. ” It ’ll 
give me a nice walk back again all through the 
rain. If you think all that about Algernon 
you shouldn’t have sent him to Cambridge.” 

“ I sent him to Cambridge by your advice, 
Kirby,” said Mr. Brassington with dignity. 

” I would give it again,” said Mr. Kirby, 
crossing his legs. ” It ’s an extraordinary 
thing that a rich man like Perkin has good 
port one day and bad port another. . . . 

He ought to go to Cambridge. I have a 
theory that everyone should go to Cambridge 
who can afford it, south-east of a line drawn 
from ” 

” Don’t, Charles, don’t,” said Mr. Bras- 
sington, a little pained, ” it ’s very serious ! ’’ 


52 


THE GREEK OVERCOAT. 


Mr. Kirby looked more chirpy than ever. 

“ I didn’t say your ideas were right ; I 
don't think they are. I said that if you had 
ihose ideas it was nonsense to send him to 
Cambridge. Why shouldn’t he drink ? 
Why shouldn’t he gamble ? What ’s the 
harm ? ” 

"What’s the ? ” began John Bras- 

sington, with a flash in his eyes. 

" Well, well,’’ said Kirby soothingly, " I 
don’t say it ’s the best thing in the world. 
What I mean is you emphasise too much. 
You know you do. Anyhow, John, it doesn’t 
much matter ; it ’ll ail come right.’’ 

He stared at the fire, then added — 

“ Now, why can’t I get coals to burn like 
that ? Nothing but pure white ash ! ’’ 

He leant forward with a grunt, stirred the 
fire deliberately, and watched the ash with 
admiration as it fell. 

"Kirby,” said John Brassington, "it will 
break my heart ! ” 

" No it won’t ! ” said Mr. Kirby cheerfully. 

" I tell you it will ! ” replied the other with 
irritation, as though the breaking of the heart 
were an exasperating matter. " And one 

thing I am determined on — determined ” 

The merchant hesitated, and then broke out 


33 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 

abruptly in a loud voice, “ Do you know that 
I have paid his gambling debts four times 
regularly ? Regularly with every summer 
term ? ” 

“ It does you honour, John,” said Mr. 
Kirby. 

“ Ah, then,” said Mr. Brassington, with a 
sudden curious mixture of cunning and firm- 
ness in his voice, “ I haven’t paid the last, 
though ! ” 

“ Oh, you haven’t ? ” said Mr. Kirby, 
looking up. He smelt complications. 

“ No, I haven’t . . . ! I gave him fair 
warning,” said the elderly merchant, setting 
his mouth as squarely as possible, but almost 
sobbing in his heart. ” Besides which it ’s 
ruinous.” 

“ I wonder if he gave the young bloods fair 
warning ? ” mused Mr. Kirby. “ Last Grand 
National ” 

“ Oh, Lord, Charles ! ” burst out Mr. 
Brassington, uncontrollable. “D’ye know 
what, what that cub shot me for ? Curse it 
all, Kirby, two thousand pounds ! ” 

“ The devil ! ” said Charles Kirby. 

“ It is the Devil,” said John Brassington 
emphatically. 

And it was, though he little knew it, for 


54 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


it was in that very moment that the Enemy of 
Mankind was at work outside in the hall upon 
the easy material of Professor Higginson. It 
was in that very moment that the Green 
Overcoat was enclosing the body of the 
Philosopher, and was setting out on its 
adventures from Sir John Perkin’s roof. 
Even as Mr. Brassington spoke these words 
the outer door slammed. Kirby, looking up, 
suddenly said — 

“ I say, they ’re going ! What about your 
train ? ” 

“ There ’s plenty of time,” said Brassington 
wearily, “ it ’s only twelve. Do listen to what 
I am saying.” 

“I’m listening,” said Kirby respectfully. 

“ Well,” went on Mr. Brassington, “ there ’s 
the long and the short of it, I won’t pay.” 

Mr. Kirby poked the fire. 

“ The thing to do,” he said at last in a 
meditative sort of tone, “is to go down and 
give the young cubs Hell ! ” 

“ I don’t understand you, Charles,” said 
Mr. Brassington quietly ; “I simply don’t 
understand you. I was written to and I hope 
I replied with dignity. I was written to again, 
and I answered in a final manner. I will not 
pay.” 


55 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


" I have no doubt you did,” said Mr. Kirby. 
“ It ’s a curious thing how eagerly a young 
man will take to expectations ! ” 

” You simply don’t know what you ’re 
saying, Charles,” answered Mr. Brassington ; 
“ and if I didn’t know you as well as I do, I ’d 
walk out of the room.” 

” I know what I am saying exactly,” 
riposted Mr. Kirby with as much heat as his 
quizzical countenance would allow. “ I was 
going to follow it up if you hadn’t interrupted 
me. I say it ’s a curious thing how a young 
man will be moved by expectations. That ’s 
why they gamble. Thank God, I never 
married ! They like to see something and 
work for it. That ’s why they gamble. 
You won’t understand me, John,” he said, 
putting up a hand to save an interruption ; 
” but that ’s why when I was a boy my father 
put me into the office and said that if I worked 
hard something or other would happen, some- 
thing general and vague — esteem, good con- 
science, or some footling thing called success.” 

“ I wish you wouldn’t say ‘ footling,’ ” 
interjected John Brassington gravely. 

” I didn’t,” answered Mr. Kirby without 
changing a muscle, ” it ’s a horrible word. 
Anyhow, if my dad had said to me, ' Charles, 


56 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


my boy, there ’s ^loo for you in March if you 
keep hours, but if you ’re late once not a 
farthing,’ by God, John, I ’d have worked 
like a nigger ! ” 

Mr. Brassington looked at the fire and 
thought, without much result. 

“ I can’t pay it, Charles, and I won’t,” he 
said at last. ” I ’ve said I wouldn’t, and 
that ’s enough. I have written and said I 
wouldn’t, and that ’s more. But even if I 
had said nothing and had written nothing, I 
wouldn’t pay. He must learn his lesson.” 

” Oh, he ’ll learn that all right ! ” said Mr. 
Kirby carelessly. “ He ’s learning it now 
like the devil. It ’s an abominable shame, 
mind you, and I don’t mind telling you so. 
I ’ve a good mind to send him the money 
myself.” 

” If you do, Charles,” said John Brassington, 
with one of his fierce looks, “ I ’ll, I ’ll ” 

” Yes, that ’s what I was afraid of,” said 
Mr. Kirby thoughtfully. “ You ’re an ex- 
ceedingly difficult man to deal with. ... I 
shouldn’t have charged him more than five 
per cent. You ’ll lose your train, John.” 

J ohn Brassington looked at his watch again. 

“You haven’t been much use to me, 
Charles,” he said, sighing as he rose. 


57 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“ Yes, I have, John,” said Mr. Kirby, rising 
in his turn. “ What do you do with your 
evening clothes when you run up to town by 
the night train like this ? ” 

' “ I change at my rooms in town when I get 
in, Charles,” said Mr. Brassington severely, 
“ you know that as well as I do — and I wear 
my coat up to town.” 

“ They say you wear it in bed,” was Mr. 
Kirby’s genial answer. “ I ’ll come out and 
help you on with it, and we ’ll start.” 

The two men came out from the smoking- 
room into the hall. They found a number of 
guests crowding for their cloaks and hats. 
They heard the noise of wheels upon the drive 
outside. 

“ I told you how it would be, John,” said 
Mr. Kirby. “ You won’t be able to get 
through that crush. You won’t get your coat 
in time, and you ’ll miss the train.” 

“ That 's where you ’re wrong, Charles,” 
said Mr. Brassington, with a look of infinite 
organising power. " I always leave my coat 
in the same one place in every house I know.” 

He made directly for the door, where a large 
and sleepy servant was mounting guard, 
stumbled to a peg that stood in the entry, and 
discovered that the coat was gone. 


58 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


There followed a very curious scene. 

The entry was Somewhat dark. It was 
only lit from the hall beyond. Mr. Kirby, 
looking at his friend as that friend turned 
round from noting his loss, was astonished to 
see his face white — so white that it seemed too 
clearly visible in the dark corner, and it 
was filled with a mixture of sudden fear and 
sudden anger. From that face came a low 
cry rather than a phrase — 

“ It 's gone, Charles ! ” 

The louty servant started. Luckily none 
of the guests heard. Mr. Kirby moved up 
quickly and put his hand on Brassington’s 
arm. 

“ Now, do manage yourself, John,” he 
said. “ What ’s gone ? ” 

“ My Green Overcoat ! ” gasped Mr. Bras- 
sington in the same low tone passionately. 

“ Well ? ” 

“ Well ! You say ‘ well ’ — you don’t 
understand ! ” 

“ Yes, I do, John,” said Mr. Kirby, with a 
sort of tenderness in his voice. “ I under- 
stand perfectly. Come back here with me 
Be sensible.” 

“ I won’t stir ! ” said Mr. Brassington 
irresolutely. 


59 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


Mr. Kirby put a hand affectionately upon 
his old friend’s shoulder and pushed him to 
the door of the smoking-room they had just 
left. He shut that door behind him. None 
of the guests had noticed. It was so much 
to the good. 

“ It 's gone ! It ’s gone ! ” said John 
Brassington twice. 

He had his hands together and was inter- 
lacing the fingers of them nervously. 

Mr. Kirby was paying no attention ; he 
was squatting on his hams at a sideboard, 
and saying — 

“ It ’s lucky that I do John Perkin’s 
business for him, I ’m being damned familiar.” 

He brought out a decanter of brandy, 
chucked the heel of Mr. Brassington’s port 
into the fire, and poured out a glassful of the 
spirit. 

“ I always forget your last craze, John,” 
he said ; ” but if I was a doctor I should tell 
you to drink that.” 

John Brassington drank a little of the 
brandy, and Mr. Kirby went on — 

” Don’t bother about Belgium to-night, 
my boy. In the first place, take my overcoat. 
I am cleverer than you in these crushes, I 
don't even hang it on a peg. I leave it ” (and 


6o 



“ It ’s gone / It ’s gone ! ” said John Brassington twice 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


here he reached behind a curtain), “ I leave 
it here,” and he pulled it out. 

It was no more than an easy mackintosh 
without arms. He put it on his unresisting 
friend, who simply said — 

“ What are you going to do, Charles ? ” 

“ I am going to take orders,” said Charles 
Kirby, suddenly pulling out from his pocket 
a square of fine, black silk, and neatly adjust- 
ing it over his shirt front. “ I haven’t got a 
parsons dog collar on, but a man can walk 
the streets in this. After all, some of the 
clergy still wear the old-fashioned collars and 
white tie, don’t they ? ” 

John Brassington smiled palely. 

“ Oh, it ’s in the house ! ” he said. “ It ’s 
sure to be in the house somewhere ! ” 

“Now, John,” said Charles Kirby firmly, 
“ don’t make a fool of yourself. Don’t ask 
for that coat. It ’s the one way not to get it. 
Stay where you are, and I ’ll bring you news.” 

He went out, and in five minutes he came 
back with news. ^ 

“ Fifty people went out before we got up, 
John. No one knows who they were. The 
idiot at the door could only remember the 
Quaker lot and My-lord, and Perkin ’s so 
fussed that he can do nothing but swear, and 


62 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


that’s no use. You’ve simply got to come 
along with me, and we ’ll walk home through 
the rain. Take Belgium at your leisure.” 

“ It isn’t Belgium that ’s worrying me ! ” 
said poor Mr. Brassington. 

“No, I know,” said Charles Kirby sooth- 
ingly. “ I understand.” 

The two men went out into the night and 
the storm. Charles Kirby enjoyed bad 
weather ; it was part of his manifold per- 
versity. He tried to whistle in the teeth of 
the wind as they went along the main road 
towards the Crampton Park suburb of the 
town. Brassington strode at his side. 

“You didn’t order a carriage,” said Kirby 
after a little while ; “ you didn’t know it was 
going to rain. I suppose that Green Overcoat 
of yours has got luck in the lining ? ” 

“ It has a cheque-book of mine in the 
pocket,” said John Brassington. 

“Yes, but that ’s not what you ’re bother- 
ing about,” said Mr. Kirby. “You ’re 
bothering about the luck. For a man who 
hates cards, John, you’re superstitious.” 

For some paces Brassington said nothing, 
then he said — 

“ Long habit affects men.” 

“ Of course it does,” said Mr. Kirby, with 


63 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


the fullest sympathy. “ That is why so many 
people are afraid of death. They 're afraid of 
the change of habit.” 

And after that nothing more was said until 
they came to the lodge gates of that very 
large, ugly, convenient and modern house, 
which John Brassington had built and for no 
reason at all had called “ Lauderdale.” 

“ Shall I come up to the door with you, 
John ? ” said Mr. Kirby. 

“ If you don’t mind,” answered Brassington 
doubtfully. 

“Not a bit,” said Mr. Kirby cheerfully. 
“ If I had grounds as big as yours I shouldn’t 
go through them alone.” 

The two men walked up the short way to 
the main door. When it was opened for them, 
the first thing Mr. Brassington said to his 
servant was — 

“ Has anyone brought back my overcoat ? ” 

The servant had seen nothing of it. 

“ It ’s not here,” said Mr. Brassington, 
turning round to Mr. Kirby. “ Come in.” 

“No, I won’t, John,” said Mr. Kirby. 
“ I ’ll ring you up in the morning. I ’ll do 
better than come in, I ’ll try and find it for 
you.” 

“ You ’re a good friend, Charles,” said John 


64 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


Brassington, with meaning and simplicity. 
He had got a blow. 

“ Meanwhile, John,” said Kirby, standing 
outside and dripping in the rain, “ remember 
it 's doing some other fellow heaps of good. 
Heaps and heaps and heaps ! I should like 
a drink.” 

“ Come in,” said Brassington again. 

“ Very well,” said Kirby as he came in ; 
“ but I won’t take off my hat.” 

Mr. Brassington had wine sent for, and 
Charles Kirby drank. 

“ It ’s too late to drink wine,” he said when 
'he had taken three or four glasses. “ It 's a 
good thing that I don’t care about the office, 
isn’t it ? Good night.” 

The servant held the door open for him, 
and Brassington walked off ; but when the 
master of the house was out of sight and 
hearing, Mr. Kirby stopped abruptly on the 
steps, and turning to the servant just before 
the door was shut upon him, said — 

“ Who did you speak to to-day about your 
master's overcoat ? ” 

The man was so startled that he blurted 
out — 

” Lord, sir, I never said a word ! It was 
the coachman who spoke to the young 

65 

5 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


gentleman when the young gentleman saw it. 
He didn’t borrow it, sir. He was a friend of 
Mr. Algernon’s.” 

“ Was he ? ” said Mr. Kirby. “ Well, all 
right,” and he turned to go down the drive. 
He reflected that it was a mile and a half to 
his own home ; but then, there was the storm 
still raging and he liked it, and, thank Heaven, 
he never got up earlier than he could help. 
He therefore proceeded to whistle, and as he 
whistled, to consider curiously the soul of that 
old friend of thirty years, whom he loved with 
all his heart. Next he made a picture of a 
young gentleman, a friend of his friend’s son, 
coming and asking to see the Green Overcoat, 
and learning it by heart. Why ? Mr. Kirby 
didn’t know. He stacked the fact up on a 
shelf and left it there. 


66 


CHAPTER IV. 


In which it is seen that University training fits 
one jor a business career. 

The dawn in the month of May comes much 
earlier than most well-to-do people imagine. 
It comes earlier than most people of the class 
which buys and reads novels know, and as by 
this time I can be quite certain that the 
reader has either bought, hired, borrowed, or 
stolen this enchanting tale, I feel safe in 
twitting him or her or it upon their ignorance. 

The dawn in May comes so incredibly early 
that the man who makes anything of a night 
of it is not sleepy until broad daylight. Now, 
even those who have formed but a superficial 
acquaintance with the adventures of Professor 
Higginson will admit that he had made a 
night of it. Such a night as even the sacred 
height of Montmartre and the great trans- 
pontine world of London hardly know. 
Providence had not left him long to curse and 
despair in darkness bound to his chair. He 
was already exhausted, but he could still 


67 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


think and act, when he perceived that a sickly 
light was filling the room. So dawned upon 
him Tuesday, the third of May, a date of 
dreadful import for his soul. 

It was then that the Psychologist remem- 
bered that his arms were free. 

In that wide reading of his to which I have 
several times alluded, and which replaced for 
him the coarser experiences of life. Professor 
Higginson had learned of Empire Builders 
and strong men who with no instrument but 
their good Saxon teeth had severed the most 
dreadful fetters. How then should he fail, 
whose two hands were at liberty, to divest 
himself of his mere hempen bonds ? 

He cursed himself for a fool — in modulated 
internal language — for not having thought of 
the thing before. 

He first surveyed all that his eyes could 
gather. The box cord surrounded the Green 
Overcoat with a sevenfold stricture. It was 
continuous. It curled round the rungs and 
the legs of the chair, it tightly grasped his 
ankles and his knees. Somewhere or other it 
was knotted, and he must find that knot. 

Heaven, or (as the Professor preferred to 
believe) Development has given to the human 
arm and hand an astonishing latitude and 


68 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


choice of movement. Since the knot wasn’t 
in sight, it must be behind him. He felt 
gingerly along the cord with either hand, so 
far as either hand would reach, but found it 
not. 

He next decided that the knot must be 
beneath him. The chair had wide arms, to 
which his body was strictly bound. He bent 
as far as he could first to one side and then to 
the other, but he could discover no knot upon 
the seat beneath. 

Once more he leant backwards (at some 
considerable expense of pain), and with the 
extreme tip of his right middle finger just 
managed to touch a lower rung at the back of 
the chair ; there at last he found the accursed 
tangle. There he could tickle the outer edge 
of the damnable nexus of rope. There w’as 
the knot 1 Just out of reach ! 

In one strenuous and manly attempt to add 
one inch to his reach in that direction, he 
toppled the chair backwards and fell, striking 
the back of his head heavily against the floor. 

The Professor was not pleased. He was 
horribly hurt, and for a moment he lay 
believing that all things had come to an end. 
But human instinct, fertile in resource, awoke 
in him. He swung his head and shoulders 


69 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


upwards spasmodically in a desperate effort 
to redress himself. Finding that useless, he 
deliberately turned over on his side, from this 
on to his knees, and so upon all fours, with 
the chair still tightly bound to him and riding 
him like a castle. 

Having attained that honourable position — 
which is by all the dogmas of all the Univer- 
sities the original attitude of our remote 
ancestors — ^he made a discovery. 

In this' aative posture he was capable of 
progression, of progression with the chair 
burdening his back like the shell of a tortoise, 
and with his legs dragged numbly after him, 
but still of progression, for he could put one 
hand before the other after the fashion of a 
wounded bear, and so drag the remainder of 
his person in their wake. 

In this fashion, as the light gradually 
broadened on the filthy and deserted apart- 
ment, Professor Higginson began an odyssey 
painful and slow all over the floor of his prison. 
He inspected its utmost comers in search of 
something sharp wherewith to cut the cord, 
but nothing sharp was to be found. 

It was broad daylight by the time he had 
completed his circumnavigation and detailed 
survey. In the half light he had hoped 


70 



THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


that the window might give upon the 
garden ; now that everything was fully re- 
vealed by the dawn, he was disappointed. 
The one window, as he cricked his neck to 
look up at it, gave upon nothing better than 
the brick wall of a narrow, dirty backyard. 
He slowly retraced his steps, or rather spoor, 
to the position he had originally occupied, 
and then with infinite labour, grabbing at the 
edge and legs of the table, tilted the chair 
right side uppermost, and resumed the position 
of Man Enthroned. 

He was exhausted. 

He was exhausted ; but the new day always 
brings some kind of vigour in its train, and 
the Professor began once more to think and 
to determine, though the soul within him was 
a wet rag and his morale wholly gone. He 
was angry, so far as a man can be properly 
angry when weakened by such extremes of 
ill. He hated now not only those two young 
men, but all men. He would be free. He 
had a right to freedom. He would recover 
his ow'n freedom by whatever means, and 
when he had recovered it, then he would do 
dreadful deeds ! 

There was no sound in the great lonely 
house. The rain outside had ceased. The 


72 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


ridiculous birds, grossly ignorant of his 
sorrows, were skreedling for dear life like 
ungreased cartwheels. It was a moment 
when wickedness has power, and oh ! Pro- 
fessor Higginson, with firmer face than ever 
he had yet set, made up his mind to be free. 
.... Once free, he would undo all ill and 
wreak his vengeance. 

He first took up from the table that note 
signed John Brassington in strong, swift 
English writing. He scanned it long and 
well. 

He next took up the cheque form that had 
been left him ; he lifted it with a gesture of 
purpose too deliberate for such a character 
as his, and one that nothing but the most 
severe fortune could have bred in it. 

He felt in a pocket for a bit of pencil, and 
then — this time not on all fours, but dragging 
himself round the edges of the table and the 
burden of the chair along with him — ^he made 
for the window. 

The angels and the demons saw Professor 
Higginson do this dreadful thing ! He put 
against the lowest pane (which he could well 
reach) the signed note of John Brassington. 
The pure light of heaven's day shone through 
it clear. He held firmly above it with one of his 


73 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


free hands the bottom left-hand corner of the 
cheque form, and he traced, Professor Higgin- 
son traced, he traced lightly and carefully 
with the pencil, he traced with cunning, with 
care, and with skill the “ J ” — and the “ o ” — 
and the “ h ” — and the “ n,” and the capital 
“ B ” — and the “ r '' — and the “ a ” — and the 
“ s ” — and all the rest of the business ! 

The Good Angels flew in despair to their 
own abode, leaving for the moment the luck- 
less race of men. The Bad Ones, as I believe, 
crowded the room to suffocation ; but to use 
mere mortal terms. Professor Higginson was 
alone with his wicked deed. 

It was too late to retrace his steps. He had 
hardened his heart. With a series of ungainly 
hops, aided by the edge of the table, he re- 
gained the inkpot and the pen, and covered 
with a perfection surely unnatural the pencil 
tracing he had made. Professor Higginson 
had forged ! 

It would all come right. There was the 
" clearing ” . . . and the thing called 

“ stopping a cheque,” and an3/how — damn 
it, or rather dash it, a man was of no use for 
a good cause until he was free. . . . Yes, 

he had done right. He must be free first. 
.... Free, in spite of the bonds which cut 


7 + 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


him as he leant half forward, half sideways, 
with his eyes closed and his hands dropping 
on the arms of the chair . . . free to take 
good deep breaths . . . regular breaths, 

rather louder ones he thought — then, as men 
on active service go to sleep in the saddle, 
and sailors sleep standing at the helm from 
fatigue, so, bound and cramped, the Professor 
of Psychology and Specialist in Subliminal 
Consciousness in the Guelph University of 
Ormeston, England, slept. 

When Professor Higginson awoke the birds 
had ceased their song and had gone off stealing 
food. The air was warm. A bright sun was 
shining upon the wall of the dirty court5^ard. 
He pulled out his watch. It was a quarter to 
nine. He felt at once reposed and more 
acutely uncomfortable, fresher and yet more 
in pain from the bonds round his legs and 
middle, and less friendly with the hard chair 
that had been his shell and was now his un- 
wanted seat. As he looked at the watch, he 
remembered having broken the glass of it 
sometime ago. He remembered a splinter of 
that glass running into his hand, and — mar- 
vellous creative influence of necessity even in 
the academic soul ! — ^he remembered that 
glass could cut. 


75 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


He felt like a Columbus. He wished he 
could patent such things. He began gingerly 
to lift the glass from the case of his watch. 
It broke, and I am sorry to say did what it 
had done before — it ran into his finger. He 
sucked the wound, but was willing to forget 
it in his new found key to delivery. With a 
small fragment of the splintered thing he 
began very painfully sawing at a section of 
the rope that bound him. He might as well 
have tried to cut down a fifteen-year oak with 
a penknife. All things can be accomplished 
with labour at last, but the life of man is a 
flash. 

He looked desperately at the window, and 
another dazzling conception struck him. 
Surely his brain was burgeoning under the 
heat of nourishing adversity ! It occurred to 
him to break a window-pane ! 

He did so. The glass fell out^^ard and 
crashed on the courtyard below. With 
desperate courage but infinite precautions, 
he pulled at a jagged piece that remained. 
Here was something much more like a knife ! 
Triumphantly he began to saw away at the 
cords, and to his infinite relief the instrument 
made a rapid and increasing impression. A 
few seconds more at the most and he would 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


have severed the section. He would have 
two ends, and then, as his new-born cunning 
told him, he had but to follow up and unroll 
them and he would be free. But just as the 
last strand was ready to give, as the biceps 
muscle of his arm was only just beginning 
to ache from the steady back and forth of his 
hand, he heard hateful voices upon the stairs, 
the loud trampling of four young and hardy 
booted feet upon the uncarpeted wood, the 
key turned in the lock, and Jimmy and Melba, 
if I may still so call them, occupied the entry. 

With nervous and desperate fingers Pro- 
fessor Higginson was loosening as best he 
might the tangle of his now severed bonds, 
when they were upon him, and I greatly 
regret to say that the higher voiced of the two 
young men was guilty of the common-place 
phrase, “ Ah ! you would, would you ? " 
accompanied by a sudden forced locking of 
the elbows behind, which, bitterly offensive 
as it was, had come to be almost as stale as it 
was offensive to the Pragmatist of Guelph 
University. 

Even to Melba the Professor seemed a 
different man from the victim of a few hours 
before. He turned round savagely. He 
positively bit. In his wrath he said — 


77 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 

“ Let me go, you young devil ! ” * 

Mr. James McAuley in that same scurried 
moment had seen and picked up the cheque. 
He echoed in graver tone — 

“ Let him go, Melba, don’t be a fool ! Mr. 
Brassington,” he added, “ you would really 
have been wiser to have done this last night. 
We had no intention to put any indignity 
upon you, but you know we had a right to our 
money. After all, we warned you. . . .” 

Then, seeing the typewritten sheet unsigned, 
he said — 

" It ’s no good to us without this, Mr. 
Brassington.” 

Mr. Higginson, lowering and furtive like a 
caged cheetah, snarled and pulled the paper 
towards him. It was stamped with fhe 
business heading of the Brassington firm. It 
was brief and to the point ; 

“ James McAuley, Esq. 

“ Dear Sir, 

“ After consultation with those best fitted 
to advise me, I have decided, though I still 
regard the necessity placed upon me as a 
grievous injustice, to liquidate my son’s 
foohsh debt. 

“ I enclose my cheque for £ 2 , 000 , for which 


78 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


you will be good enough to send me a receipt 
in due form, and I am, 

“ Your obedient servant. 


Then came the blank for signature. Pro- 
fessor Higginson with a very ugly face, uglier 
for his hours of torture, turned on the young 
men. 

“ I am to sign that, am I ? " 

“If you please, Mr, Brassington,” said 
Jimmy unperturbed. 

“ Well, then, I ’ll thank you to leave the 
room, you young fool, and your friend with 
you.” 

Melba and Jimmy looked at each other 
doubtfully. 

“ I cannot, will not do it,” barked the 
wretched scientist, “ if you stay here ! ” 

“ After all, Mr. Brassington, we had all this 
out last night ” 

“Yes, and I wouldn’t do it until you were 
gone, would I ? ” said Professor Higginson, 
scoring a point. 

“ After all, he can’t do anything through 
that window, Melba, can he ? Let 's come 
out and wait. But I warn you, sir,” he 
added,” turning to the fallen man, “ we shall 


79 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


hear all that you do, and we shall stop 
immediately outside the door.” 

“Go to Hell ! ” said Professor Higginson, 
using the phrase for the second time in his life, 
and after an interval of not less than twenty- 
three years. 

Whereupon the young men retired, and the 
now hardened soul proceeded once again to 
trace, to pencil, and to sign. 

“ It ’s ready ! ” he shouted to the door as his 
pen left the paper. 

His tormentors re-entered and possessed 
themselves of the document, and then, though 
Melba remained an enemy, Jimmy’s de- 
meanour changed. 

“ Mr. Brassington,” he said, “ we are very 
much obliged to you, very much obliged, 
indeed.” 

“ So you ought to be,” said Professor 
Higginson suddenly. 

“ Henceforward I beg you will regard 
these premises as your own,” said Jimmy. 

With these words he suddenly caught the 
Professor down upon the chair, took that chair 
upon one side, Melba took it upon the other, 
and they held and carried the unfortunate man 
rapidly through the open door, up three flights 
of uncarpeted stairs, until, assuring him of the 


8o 



The now hardened soul proceeded to trace, to pencil, and 
to sign. 



THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


honesty of their intentions, they deposited 
him upon a landing opposite a comfortable- 
looking green baize door. Then they stood to 
recover their breath, still holding him tightly 
upon either side, while Jimmy as spokesman 
repeatedly assured him that they meant him 
no ill. 

“ It ’s nothing but a necessary precaution, 
Mr. Brassington, we do assure you,” he puffed. 
“You see, the cheque must be cleared. Not 
that we doubt your honour for a moment ! 
You ’ll find all you want in there. You can 
untie yourself now that you ’ve cut the rope, 
you know, and there 's everything a man 
can possibly want. It ’s a solemn matter of 
honour between us, Mr. Brassington, that 
we ’ll let you out the moment the cheque ’s 
cleared. And there ’s plenty of food and 
good wine, Mr. Brassington, really good wine 


“ And ginger-ale, if you like the slops,” 
added Melba ; “a man like you would.” 

“We are very sorry,” said Jimmy, by way 
of palliating the insult, “ but you must see 
as well as we do that it has to be done. Not 
that we doubt your honour ! Not for a 
moment ! ” 

With these words he gave some mysterious 


82 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


signal to Melba. The baize door was swung 
open and a large oaken door within it was 
unbolted ; the chair and the wretched man 
upon it were run rapidly through, the bolt 
shot, and Jimmy, standing outside, asked, 
as in duty bound — 

“ You ’re not hurt ? You 're all right ? ” 

A hearty oath assured him that all was 
well. He tramped with his companion down 
the stairs, and Mr. Higginson was again a 
orisoner and alone. 


83 


CHAPTER V. 


In which Solitude is unable to discover the charms 
which Sages have seen in her face. 

The Philosopher cursed gently, and then 
listened. 

The steps of his tormentors grew fainter as 
they reached the lower part of the house. 
Then he heard, or thought he heard, the 
distant crunching of boots on gravel. After 
that came a complete silence. 

It occurred to the ill-used gentleman that 
he was free. He pulled savagely at the loose 
cords : got one leg to move and then the 
other ; gradually unrolled the cord and 
attempted to stand. 

At first he could not. Nine hours of such 
confinement had numbed him. He felt also 
an acute pain, which luckily did not last long, 
where his circulation had been partially 
arrested at the ankles. In a few minutes lie 
could stand up and walk. It w'as then that 
he began to observe his new’ surroundings. 

He found himself in a large and very higli 


84 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 

room, with a steep-pitched roof, soaring and 
sombre, quite twenty feet above him. The 
walls were bare of ornament, but still covered 
with a rich dark red paper, darker, cleaner 
patches on w'hich marked places where pic- 
tures had hung. On the height of the roof, 
looking north, w^as a large skylight which lit 
the whole apartment. There was a good 
writing-table with pigeon-holes and two rows 
of draw'ers on either side. Upon this writing 
table stood a little kettle, a spirit stove, a 
bottle of meth5dated spirit, a tin of milk 
cocoa, three large loaves, a chicken, tinned 
meats, a box of biscuits, and, what was not 
at all to be despised, an excellent piece of 
Old Stilton Cheese. The thoughtful provider 
of these had even added a salt-cellar full of 
salt. There stood also upon the floor beside 
these provisions a large stone jar, which upon 
uncorking and smelling it he discovered to 
contain sherry. 

The room had also a fireplace with a fire 
laid, a full coal-scuttle, an excellent arm- 
chair, a few books on a shelf — and that was 
all. 

The Professor having taken stock of these 
things, did the foolish thing that we should all 
do under the circumstances. He went to the 


85 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


big oak door, banged it, rattled it, kicked it, 
and abused it. It stood firm. 

The next thing he did was also a thing which 
any of us would have done, though it had 
more sense in it — ^he shouted at the top of his 
voice. He kept up that shouting in a number 
of incongruous forms in which the word 
“ Help ” occurred with a frequency that 
would have been irritating to a hearer had 
there been one, but audience he had none. 

He knocked furiously at either wall of the 
long room. He turned at last exhausted, and 
perceived with delight a low door, which he 
had failed at first to notice ; it was in the 
gloom of the far corner. He made for this 
door. To his delight it opened easily, and 
revealed beyond it nothing but darkness. 
There were matches upon the mantelpiece ; 
he struck one and peered within. He saw a 
neat little bed, not made by expert women, 
rather (he thought) by these jailers of his, 
and through a farther door he saw what might 
be a bathroom, fairly comfortably appointed. 

Such was Professor Higginson’s prison. It 
might have been worse, and to the pure in 
heart prison can be no confinement for the 
soul. But either Professor Higginson’s heart 
was not pure or something else was wrong 


86 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


with him, for when he had taken stock of his 
little luxuries he treated them to a long male- 
diction, the scope and elaboration of which 
would have surprised him in other days. 

♦ * * * 

Necessity, which is stronger than the Gods, 
knows no law, and is also the mother of 
invention. She is fruitful in stirring the 
pontifical instinct, the soul of the builder, 
of the contriver, in man. 

Necessity awoke that primal power in the 
starved Higginsonian soul. When the Pro- 
fessor of Subliminal Consciousness had 
prowled round and round the room like a 
caged carnivorous thing some twenty times, 
seeking an outlet, harbouring disordered 
schemes, a clear idea suddenly lit up his 
cloudy mind. 

It was glass again ! The skylight was made 
of glass, and glass is a fragile thing ! 

He stood with his hands in his trouser 
pockets looking up to that large, slanting 
window in the roof and taking stock. It was 
made to open, but the iron rod which raised 
and lowered it had been disconnected and 
taken away. He thought he could perceive 
in certain small dots far above him the heads 
of screws recently driven in to secure the outer 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


edge of the skylight and make it fast. He 
estimated the height. Now your Professor 
of Subliminal Consciousness in general is no 
dab at this ; but that great Governess of the 
Gods, Necessity, to whom I have already paid 
eight well-merited compliments, threw him 
back in this matter also upon the primitive 
foundations of society, and the Philosopher 
was astonished to find himself applying the 
most ancient of measures. He reckoned by 
his own height taken against the wall. He 
was a man of six feet. The lowest part of the 
window W'as about twice his own height from 
the floor — a matter of twelve feet ; its summit 
another six or eight. 

Then Professor Higginson, having for the 
first time in his life measured, began the ancient 
and painful but absorbing task of building next. 

It is the noblest of man’s handicrafts ! He 
had heard somewhere that the stretch of a 
man’s arms is about his own height, and in 
this spread-eagle fashion he measured the 
bed, the desk, the chairs, the bookshelves. 

He carefully put the food dowm upon the 
floor, tipped the desk up lengthways on one 
end. He did this at a terrible strain — and 
was anno5^ed to see ink flowdng out suddenly 
and barely missing his trouser leg. 


88 


The green overcoat. 


With a strength he had not believed to be 
in him, he wheeled the iron bed out of the 
inner room, and managed to get it hoisted by 
degrees on top of the desk thus inverted. He 
next hoisted up the arm-chair, getting his head 
under the seat of it, suffering some pain in 
his crown before he got it on to the bed. He 
passed up the three wooden chairs to keep it 
company, and then with trembling heart but 
firm will he began to climb. 

It is a pity that too profound a study of 
Subliminal Consciousness destroys Faith, 
for if the Professor had but believed in God 
this would have been an admirable oppor- 
tunity for prayer. Twice in the long ascent 
he thought the bed w^as down on the top of 
him ; twicfe he felt a trembling that shook his 
unhappy soul — the floor seemed so far below ! 
At last he stood triumphant like the first 
men who conquered the Matterhorn ; he was 
ready to erect upon so firm a base the last 
structure he had planned. 

Quaint memories of his childhood returned 
to him as he fixed the wooden chairs one upon 
the other, and jammed the lowest of them in 
between the anns of the padded easy- chair, 
which was to support the whole. 

, If the first part of the ascent had proved 


89 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


perilous, this last section — the gingerly 
mounting of a ladder of chair rungs and legs 
uneasily poised upon a cushioned seat — ^was 
as hazardous as ever human experiment had 
been. The frail structure creaked and 
trembled beneath him, as, with infinite caution 
and testing, he swung one long leg after the 
other up the frail scaffolding. An unworthy 
eagerness made his heart beat when he was 
within the last rung of the top chair seat. 
The glass of the skylight was all but within his 
reach .... he could almost touch it with 
his outstretched hand as he tried the last step. 

But already ominously the wooden child of 
his fancy, the engine he had made, was be- 
ginning to betray him. He felt an uneasy 
swinging in the tower of chairs. He tried to 
compensate it by too sudden a movement of 
his body, and then — crash ! — and in the 
tenth of a second all was ruin. 

He felt his head striking a rung of wood, a 
cushion, an iron bar, his hands clutching at 
a chaotic and cascading ruin of furniture, and 
he completed his adventure sitting hard upon 
the floor with the legs of the wooden chairs 
about him, the stuffed arm-chair upside down 
within a foot of his head, the iron bedstead 
hanging at a dangerous slant above the end 


90 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


of the desk, and the wood of this last gaping 
in a great gash. He had certainly failed. 

♦ * * * 

There is no soul so strong but defeat will 
check it for a moment. All the long hours 
remaining of that day, even when he had 
eaten food and drunk wine, he despaired of 
any issue. 

As darkness closed in on him he raised the 
energy to get the bed down on to the floor again. 
He made it up as best he could (the sheets 
were clean, the pillows comfortable), and he 
slept. 

Upon the Wednesday morning he woke — 
but now I must play a trick upon the reader, 
lest worse should befall him. I must beg him 
to allow the lapse of that Wednesday, and to 
consider the Professor rising with the first 
faint dawn of Thursday. Why they should 
keep him thus confined, how long they 
intended to do so, whether those fiendish 
youngsters were determined upon his slow 
starvation and death, what was happening to 
that miserable cheque and therefore to his 
future peace of mind through the whole term 
of his life, where he was, by what means, if 
any, he might be restored to the companion- 
ship of his kind — all these things did the 


9 * 


tHE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


Professor ruminate one hundred times, and 
upon none could he come to any conclusion. 
Such an occupation were monotonous for the 
reader to follow, and even if he desires to 
follow it I cannot be at the pains of writing 
it out ; so here we are on Thursday morning, 
the 5th of May, forty-eight hours after he, 
the Philosopher, had Done the Deed and 
handed that sad forgery to his captors. 

If the truth must be told, repose and isola- 
tion had done Professor Higginson good. 

In the first place, he had read right through 
the few books he had found set out for him,jj 
and thus became thoroughly acquainted for 
the first time in his life with the poet Milton, 
the New Testament, and Goschen on Foreign 
Exchanges, for such was the library which had 
been provided for him. 

As he rose and stretched himself in that 
disappointing dawn, he found the energy to 
go through his empty ceremony of howling 
for aid, but it soon palled and his throat began 
to hurt him. 

He looked up again at that skylight showing 
clear above the half darkness of the room, and 
was struck quite suddenly with a really 
brilliant scheme. He remembered bitterly 
the painful misfortune of his first attempt, 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


rubbed a sore place, and wished to Heaven 
that his present revelation had come first. 

He proceeded to execute at once the prompt- 
ings of his new scheme. He took the sheets 
of his bed and tied them one to another, the 
pillow cases he linked up upon the tail of these, 
and, to make certain of the whole matter, he 
ended by tying on the counterpane as well. 
He tied them all securely together, for he 
intended the rope so made to bear his 
whole weight. Taking one of the broken 
chairs, he secured it stoutly to one end 
of the line ; he chose his position carefully 
beneath the skylight, he swung the chair, and 
at the end of the third swing hurled it up into 
the air at the glass above him. It was his 
plan to break that glass. The chair would 
catch upon the ridge of the roof outside, and 
he would manage in his desperation to swarm 
up the tied sheets and win his way through 
the broken pane to the roof. The chair was 
heavy, and he failed some twenty times. 
Twice the chair had struck him heavily on the 
head as it fell back, but he persevered. 

Perseverance is the one virtue which the 
Gods reward, and at long last the Professor saw 
and heard his missile crashing clean through 
the skylight. He was as good as free, save 


93 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


that — such is the academic temper ! — ^he had 
forgotten to catch hold of the other end of 
the line. 

He heard the chair rattle loudly down the 
roof outside, he saw its long tail of knotted 
sheets swiftly drawn up through the broken 
skylight, he leapt up to clutch it just too 
late, and marked in despair the last of his 
bedclothes flashing up past and above him 
like a white snake, to disappear through the 
broken window from his gaze. Two seconds 
afterwards he heard the chair fall into the 
garden some fifty feet below, and he noted 
with^some disgust that a quantity of broken 
glass had come down upon his food. 

It was, as I have said, in the first grey light 
of the third day — the Thursday — that he had 
thus gratuitously shed his bedding. For some 
moments after that failure he sat down and 
despaired. He also felt his head where the 
chair had struck it. 

As he turned round helplessly to discover 
whether some object might not suggest a 
further plan, he was astonished to see the 
great oaken door standing ajar. He pulled 
it open to its widest extent ; the green baize 
door beyond swung to his touch, and he was 
a free man. 


94 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


Someone had slipped those bolts in the 
night, and if that someone were Jimmy, 
Jimmy had kept his word. 

It was with no gratitude that Professor 
Higginson cautiously and fearfully descended 
the stairs. He knew so little of men, that he 
dreaded further capture and some vigorous 
young scoundrel leaping upon him from an 
unexpected door. He passed three flights, 
each untenanted, furnitureless and quite 
silent, until he reached the hall. 

The front door stood wide open The 
delicious breath of the early summer morning 
came in, mixed with the twittering of birds. 
Still wondering and half doubting his good 
fortune. Professor Higginson was about to 
step out, when he remembered — what ? — the 
Green Overcoat. He must face the ordeal of 
those stairs again. It was the bravest thing 
he had ever done in his life. It was the only 
brave thing he had ever done in his life. But 
fear of worse things compelled him. If that 
Green Overcoat were found and he were 
traced — he dared not think of the con- 
sequences. 

His recent experience was far too vivid for 
him to dream of putting it on. He carried 
the great weight of it over his arm, and in the 


V 


95 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


first steps he took in the open air towards the 
lodge, under that pure sky in which the sun 
had not yet risen, it was his honest and his 
firm intention to take it straight to Crampton 
Park, to discover “ Lauderdale," to restore 
it to its owner and to explain all. 

The lodge he found to be empty and even 
ruinous. A mouldy gate stood with one of 
its bars broken, hanging by a single hinge, 
ajar. He passed out upon a lonely country 
lane. He was glad it was lonely. An elderly 
don in an exceedingly dirty shirt, clad in 
evening clothes which had been through 
something worse than a prize fight, his collar 
crumpled and vile, no tie, and boots half 
buttonless, would be foolish to desire any 
general companionship of human strangers 
upon a May-day morning. It w'as up to him 
to find his whereabouts, and to make the best 
of his way to his lodgings and to proper 
clothing. Then, he hoped, by six at the latest, 
he could do what the voice of duty bade him 
do. He felt in his pocket, and was glad to 
find his latch-key and his money safe, for 
with these two a man commands the world ; 
but as he felt in liis pockets he missed some- 
thing familiar. What it was he could not 
recollect — only, he knew vaguely something 


96 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


he expected was not there, a memorandum 
or what not. He set it down for nervousness, 
and went his way. 

The rolling landscape of the Midlands was 
to his left and right. The lane ran along a 
ridge that commanded some little view upon 
either side. It led him northwards, and he 
could see in the clear air, for the moment 
smokeless, the tall chimneys of Ormeston. 
They were perhaps five miles away, and the 
Professor prepared to cover that distance. 
His heart was shot with a varied emotion, of 
exultation at his morning freedom, of terror 
that his evil deeds might have gone before 
him. But he was determined upon his duty 
under that cold dawn. He went swinging 
forward. 

The east put on its passing cloudless colours, 
and beyond the rim of fields, far outward 
beyond the world, Phoebus Apollo rose un- 
heralded and shone with his first level beams 
upon the misguided man. 

Now almost as Apollo rose whether proceed- 
ing from Apollo’s influence or from that of 
some Darker Power, hesitation and scheming 
entered once more into the heart of Professor 
Higginson. ^ 

First, he found that he was getting a little 
tired of the way, Five miles was a long 


7 


97 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


distance. Then he remembered his deter- 
mination to give up the Coat. It was heavy. 
Why carry it five miles and make a fool of 
himself at the end of them ? 

By the second mile he had come to the 
conclusion that it was ridiculous to knock up 
what was probably a wealthy merchant’s 
household (“ Lauderdale ” sounded like that, 
so did Crampton Park) at such unearthly 
hours. The man was certainly wealthy — he 
had seen his name in the papers when he had 
got his chair a few months before. 

In the third mile Mr. Higginson determined 
not to fulfil his difficult mission until he had 
groomed himself and could call upon this 
local bigwig at a reasonable hour. Such men 
(he remembered) were influential in provincial 
towns. 

In the midst of the fourth mile he saw 
before him the first of the tall standards 
which marked the end of an electric tramway, 
and at that point stood a shelter, very neat, 
provided by some local philanthropic 
scoundrel. It sent up a grateful little curl 
of smoke which promised coffee. 

The Professor came to the door of the 
shelter, timidly turned its handle, and peered in. 

Three men were within. Two seemed to 


98 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


be night-watchmen, one of whom was con- 
cocting the brew, the other cutting large 
slices of bread and butter. The third man — 
short, stubbly, and of an expression wholly 
dull and vicious — was not in their uniform. 
He had the appearance of a man whose pro- 
fession was very vague, and seemed to be 
lounging there for no better purpose than 
cadging a cup from pals. He was remarkable 
for nothing but a Broken Nose. 

The Professor smelt the delicious steam. 
He came in through the doorway, and all 
three men looked up. 

It is a beautiful trait in our national 
character that the poor will ever welcome 
the wealthier classes, particularly when these 
betray upon their features that sort of imbecile 
ignorance of reality and childish trust in rogues 
which is common to all the liberal professions 
save that of the law, which is rare in 
merchants, which is universal in dons. 

If the mass of our people love a guileless 
simplicity in their superiors, W'hen it is accom- 
panied by debauch they positively adore it ; 
and the excellent reception the Professor met 
with upon his entry w'as due more than any- 
thing else to the conviction of his three 
inferiors that an elderly man in tattered 


99 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


evening clothes and abominable linen must 
have spent the night before in getting out- 
rageously drunk. 

His offer of no less than a shilling for a piece 
of bread and a cup of coffee was gratefully 
accepted. The word “ Sir ” was used at 
least eighteen times in the first three minutes 
of conversation. 

The Professor felt that he was with friends, 
and his self-discipline weakened and weakened 
by degree after degree. It sank with the 
coffee and the bread, it sank lower with the 
respectful tones in which he was addressed ; 
then without warning it vanished, and that 
soul which had already fallen to forgery and 
intemperate language went down a further 
step to Sheol. 

The Devil, who had been away during the 
last two days attending to other business, 
must have caught the -Professor as he passed 
that lodge-gate and have hastened to his side. 
At any rate, Mr. Higginson deliberately sized 
up the three men before him, determined with 
justice that the lounger, the Man with the 
Broken Nose, was the most corruptible and 
at the same time the least dangerous if any- 
thing should come to the (dreadful word !) 
pohce. 


lOO 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


He led up to his subject carefully. He said 
that Crampton Park was in the neighbourhood, 
was it not ? He had heard that it lay some- 
where to the left in a western suburb of the 
town. He professed to have found the Green 
Overcoat in the hall of the house where — 
where he had passed the night, and as he used 
these words the three toilers discreetly smiled. 
He professed to have promised to return it. 
He professed to remember — ^with grateful 
unexpectedness — the^name of the house to 
which he had promised to send it. It was 
“ Lauderdale.” He professed an ignorance 
of the name of its owner. The Professor 
professed far more that morning of sin than 
his academic professorship entitled him to do. 

He found the lounger (with the Broken 
Nose) somewhat indifferent to his motives, 
but very much alive to the economics of the 
situation ; and when the bargain was struck 
it was for half a crown that the bad proletarian 
man (with the Broken Nose) took the Green 
Overcoat over his disreputable arm, promising 
to deliver it at “ Lauderdale ” in the course of 
the morning. 

An immense weight was lifted from the 
unworthy mind of Professor Higginson. Must 
I tell the whole of the shameful tale ? The 


lOI 



The had proletarian man [with the Broken Nose) took 
the Green Overcoat. 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


Professor, as he rose to leave the Shelter, 
positively added to his fellow-citizen of the 
Broken Nose — 

“ Oh ! And by the way ! Of course, he 
will ask who the Coat is from. . . . Say it 
is from Mr. Hitchenbrook." He pretended 
to feel in his pocket. “No, I haven’t got a 
card ; anyhow, say Mr. Hitchenbrook — Mr. 
Hitchenbrook, of Cashington,” he added 
genially, to round off the wicked lie. 

Thus relieved of duty and thus divorced 
from Heaven, Professor Higginson nodded 
authoritatively to the Broken Nose, cheer- 
fully to the other two men (who touched their 
hair with their forefingers in reply), and strode 
out again to follow the tram lines into the 
town. 

* * * * 

Now here, most upright of readers, you will 
say that the Philosopher has fallen to his 
lowest depth, and that no further crime he 
may commit can entertain you. 

You are in error. The depths of evil are 
infinite, and the Professor, as he walked down 
the long road which brought him to Ormeston, 
was but entering that long road of the spirit 
which leads to full damnation. 


103 


CHAPTER VI. 


In which Professor Higginson Begins to Taste 
the Sweets of Fame. 

When Professor Higginson reached the door 
of his lodgings the Ormeston day had begun. 

The house was one of a row of eighteenth- 
century buildings, dignified and a trifle 
decayed, representing in the geology of the 
town the strata of its first mercantile fortunes. 
It was here that the first division between 
the rich and poor of industrial Ormeston had 
begun to show itself four generations ago, and 
these roomy, half-deserted houses were the 
first fruits of that economic change. 

But Professor Higginson was not thinking 
of all that as he came up to the well- 
remembered door (which in the despair of the 
past mights he had sometimes thought he 
would never see again). He was thinking of 
how he looked with his horribly crushed and 
dirty shirt front, his ruined collar, and his 
bedraggled evening clothes upon that bright 
morning. In this reflection he was aided by 


104 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


the fixed stares of the young serving-maids 
who w^ere cleaning the doorsteps and the un- 
restrained remarks of youths who passed him 
in their delivery of milk. The first with their 
eyes, the second more plainly with their lips, 
expressed the opinion that he was no longer 
of an age for wanton pleasures, and he was 
annoyed and flustered to hear himself com- 
pared to animals of a salacious kind, notably 
the goat. 

It was not to be wondered at that, being 
what he was, a man who had never had to 
think or act in his life. Professor Higginson's 
one desire was to put his familiar door between 
himself and such tormentors. 

He rang the bell furiously and knocked 
more furiously still. An errand-boy, a 
plumber’s apprentice upon his way to work, 
and a road scavenger joined a milkman, and 
W'atched him at this exercise in a little group. 
It was a group w'hich threatened to become 
larger, for Ormeston is an early town. Pro- 
fessor Higginson, forgetting that Mrs. Randle, 
his landlady, might not be up at such an hour, 
gave another furious assault upon the knocker, 
suddenly remembered his latch key, brought 
it out, and was nervously feeling for the key- 
hole amid jeers upon his aim, when the door 


105 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


was suddenly opened and the considerable 
figure of Mrs. Randle appeared in the passage. 

For one moment she looked as people are 
said to look at ghosts that return from Hell, 
then with a shriek that startled the echoes of 
the whole street, she fell heavily against the 
Professor’s unexpecting form, nearly bringing 
it down the steps. 

Mr. Higginson was guilty of a nervous 
movement of repulsion. A little more and he 
would have succeeded in shaking off the 
excellent but very weighty woman who had 
thus greeted his return, but even as he did so 
he heard the odious comments of the Ormeston 
chivalry, notably the milkman, who told him 
not to treat his wife like a savage. The 
plumber also called it cruel. It was therefore 
with some excuse that the great Psychologist 
thrust the lady of the house within and 
slammed the door behind him with his heel. 

Mrs. Randle was partially recovered, but 
still woefully shaken. He got past her 
brutally enough, pushed into the ground 
floor room in the front of the house, and sat 
down. He felt the exhaustion of his walk and 
the irritation of the scene which had just 
passed to be too much for him. Mrs. Randle, 
with a large affection, stood at the table 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


before him, leaning heavily upon it with her 
fists, and saying, “ Oh, sir ! ” consecutively 
several times, until her emotion was sufficiently 
calm to permit of rational speech. Then she 
asked him where he had been. 

“ It ’s the talk of the whole town, sir ! Oh ! 
and me too ! Never, I never thought to see 
you again ! ” at which point in her interro- 
gation Mrs. Randle broke suddenly into a 
flood of tears, punctuated by sobs as explosive 
as they were sincere. 

She sat down the better to enjoy this relief, 
and even as she had risen to its climax, and 
the Professor was being moved to louder and 
louder objurgation, the bell rang and the 
hammer knocked in a way that was not to be 
denied. The unfortunate man caught what 
glimpse he could from the window, and was 
horrified to see two officers of the law sup- 
ported by a crowd grown to respectable 
dimensions, the foremost members of which 
were giving accurate information upon all 
that had happened. 

The Philosopher summoned the manhood 
to open the door and to face his accusers. 
They were not so startled as Mrs. Randle, who 
now came up with red and tearful face and 
somewhat out of breath (but her weeping 

107 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


largely overlain with indignation) to protest 
against- the violation of her house. 

The first of the policemen had hardly begun 
his formal questioning of Professor Higginson, 
when the second, looking a little closer, 
recognised his prey. That subtle air which 
no civilian can hope to possess, and by which, 
like the savages of Central Africa, the British 
police convey thought without words or 
message, acted at once upon the second man, 
and he adopted a manner of the utmost 
respect. To prove his zeal he dispersed the 
crowd of loungers, saluted, and told the 
Professor that it was his duty to ask him 
formally certain questions ; whereat his 
colleague — ^he that had first recognised the 
great man — added with equal humility that 
as Mr. Higginson had been lost, and the 
University moving the police in the matter, 
it was only their duty to ask what they should 
do, and what light Mr. Higginson could throw 
on the affair. There was a report of fighting. 
To this Mrs. Randle interposed, without a 
trace of logic, “ Fighting yourself ! ” 

The Professor was very glad to answer any 
questions that might be put to him, and very 
much relieved when he found that these were 
no more than what the police required to trace 

108 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


the misadventure of so prominent a citizen : 
at whose hand he had suffered, or what 
adventure had befallen him ; was it murder — 
but they saw it was not that ; whether the 
reward which had been offered should be 
withdrawn, and what clues the Professor 
could furnish. 

Mr. Higginson looked blankly at these men, 
then his eyes lit with anger. He was upon 
the very point of pouring out the whole story 
of his woes, when with that cold wind upon 
the heart which the condemned feel when they 
awake to reality upon the morning of execu- 
tion, he remembered the cheque and was 
suddenly silent. 

“ You ’d better leave me ! ” he muttered. 
“ You ’d better leave me, officer ! ” 

{ “ We were instructed, sir,” began the senior 
man more respectfully than ever— then Pro- 
fessor Higginson bolted to refuge. 

“ Well, I will see you in a minute ; I must 
put myself right. I am all ” 

“ We quite understand, sir,” said the police- 
men, taking their stations in the ground floor 
room, and drawing chairs as with the intention 
of sitting down and awaiting his pleasure. 

“ I will see you when I can. Mrs. Randle, 
please bring me some hot water.” 


109 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


And with these words the poor man 
dashed upstairs to his bedroom upon the first 
floor. 

There are ways of defeating a woman’s will 
when she has passed the age of forty, and 
these are described in books which deal either 
with an imaginary world of fiction or with a 
remote and unattainable past. No living 
man has dealt with the art, nor can wizards 
show you an example of it. 

Therefore, when Mrs. Randle returned with 
the hot water, it was Mrs. Randle that won. 

The Professor poked his head through the 
door and reached out for the can. Mrs. 
Randle broke his centre, marched for the wash- 
hand stand, poured out the grateful liquid, 
tempered it with cold, motherly tested its 
temperature with her large red hand, and the 
while opened fire with a rattle of questions, 
particularly begging him not to tell her any- 
thing until he was quite rested. Of course, 
there were the police (she said), and she would 
have to tell her own tale, too, and oh, dear, 
if he only knew what it had been those days ! 
With the Mayor himself, and what not ! At 
each stage in her operations she was careful 
to threaten a fit of crying. 

Professor Higginson’s tactics were infantile. 


no 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


They were those of his sex. He took off his 
evening coat and waistcoat preparatory to 
washing. Upon minor occasions in the past, 
mere affairs of outposts, Mrs. Randle had 
taken cover before this manoeuvre ; to-day 
the occasion was decisive, and she stood 
firm. 

“ and the Principal of the University 

too, sir ! And his dear young lady ! And, oh ! 
when they put that news in the paper, which 

wasn’t true, thanks be to God ” 

Here, as Mrs. Randle approached tears 
again, the desperate philosopher threw his 
braces from his shoulders, plunged his face 
and hands into the water, and fondly hoped 
that when he lifted it again the enemy would 
have fled. But Mrs. Randle was a widow, 
and the first sound he heard as the water ran 
out of his ears was the continuing string of 
lamentations and questionings. 

“ Where ’s the towel ? ” he asked abruptly. 
“ Where it ’s been since last Monday, sir,” 
said Mrs. Randle. “ Since that last Blessed 
Monday when we thought to lose you for ever ! 
I never thought to change it ! I never thought 
to see you back all of a heap like this ! ” 

“ Last Monday? ” hesitated Mr. Higginson 
genuinely enough. His calendar had got a 


III 



To-day the occasion was decisive and she stood firm* 



THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


little muddled. “ What ’s to-day ? ” he said it 
easily. Then he saw a look on her face. 

There is a rank in society in which to forget 
the day of the week has a very definite conno- 
tation — it means ... it means something wrong 
with the Brain. Like a flash an avenue of 
salvation was suggested to the hunted man 
by Mrs. Randle’s look. He could lose those 
few days ! They could disappear from his 
life — utterly — and with them that accursed 
business of the Green Overcoat and the fatal 
cheque-book it had hidden in its man- 
destroying folds! 

In the very few seconds which creative 
work will take under the influence of hope 
and terror, the scheme began to elaborate 
itself in the narrow mind of the poor, perse- 
cuted don. He flopped down upon a chair, 
paused suddenly in the vigorous rubbing of 
his face with the towel, passed his hand over 
the baldness of his forehead, and muttered 
vacantly — 

“ Where am I ? ” 

“You ’re here, sir I Oh, you ’re here 1 ’’ 
said good, kind Mrs. Randle in an agonised 
tone, positively going down upon her knees 
(no easy thing when religion has departed with 
youth) and laying one hand upon his knee. 


8 


113 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


The Professor laid his left hand upon hers, 
passed his right hand again over his face, and 
gasped in a thin voice — 

“ Where ’s here ? ” 

“ In Quebec Street in your own room, 
sir ! Oh, sir, don’t you know me ? I ’m 
Martha Randle ? ” 

The Professor looked down at her with 
weary but forgiving eyes. 

“ I do now,” he said ; “it comes back to 
me now.” 

“ Oh, Lord ! ” said Martha Randle, “ I ’1; 
send the giri for the chemist ! ” and she was 
gone. 

Women may be stronger than we men, my 
brothers, but we are more cunning ; and when 
she had gone the Professor, dropping the mask 
and dressing with extreme alacrity, made 
himself possible in morning clothes. His 
plan had developed still further in the few 
minutes it took him to go downstairs, and as 
he entered the room where the policemen 
awaited him, he was his own master and 
theirs. 

They rose at his entrance. He courteously 
bade them be seated again, and not allow- 
ing them to get any advantage of the first 
word, told them the plain truth in a few 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


simple and cultivated sentences, such as 
could not but carry conviction to any in- 
sufficiently salaried official. 

“ I think it well, officer,” he said, addressing 
the senior of the two men, “ to tell you the 
truth here privately. I will, of course, put 
the whole thing later before the proper 
authorities.” 

The policemen looked grave and acquiescent. 

“ The fact is,” replied Professor Higginson 
rapidly, “ I had been working very hard at 
my Address — which you may have heard of.” 

The two men looked at once as though they 
had. 

“ It was for the Bergson Society,” he ex- 
plained courteously, and the older policeman 
nodded as though he were a member himself. 

“ Well,” went on Professor Higginson in 
the tone of a man who must out with it at 
last, “ the fact is, there followed — there 
followed, I am. sorry to say, there followed 
something like a stroke — at any rate, bad 
nervous trouble. ... I have suffered — 
apparently for some days — from a complete 
loss of memory.” 

And having put the matter plainly and 
simply in such a fashion. Professor Higginson 
was silent. 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“ We quite understand, sir,” said the 
senior of the two policemen gravely, sympa- 
thetically and respectfully. “ There shan’t 
be a word from us, sir, except of course ” 

“No,” said Professor Higginson firmly, 
“ I am determined to do my duty in this 
matter ; those whom it is proper to tell ” 

At this moment Mrs. Randle, accompanied 
by a half-dressed servant, herself in an untied 
bonnet and somewhat out of breath, was 
heard at the open door with the reluctant 
and sleepy chemist,, who was her medical 
adviser. 

“ And he was that bad he thought I was 
his poor old mother, who 's been dead these 
twenty years ! ” went Mrs. Randle’s voice 
outside. 

But a moment afterwards, as she came into 
the inner room, she saw the Professor seated 
and clothed and in his right mind. He 
rejected her exuberance. 

“ Now, Mrs. Randle,” he said rather sharply, 
and forgetting for a moment the natural 
nervous weakness to be expected of one who 
had suffered Such Things, ” I have told the 
officers here and I desire you to know it as 
well.” 

He glanced at the chemist, rapidly decided 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


that the more people knew his tale the better, 
and said with intentional flatter}^ — 

“ I thank you, sir, for coming ; you are a 
medical man.” 

Then he continued, turning to the policemen 
again — 

"You understand ? There is unfortunately 
very little to say. My last recollection is of 
leaving Sir, John Perkin's house — he was 
giving a party on — on . * . wait a moment 
... it was Monday. I remember having 
a sort of shock just after getting out of his 
gate, and then I do not remember anything 
more until I was approaching this house. It 
will be Tuesday to-day ? ” 

"No, sir,” said the policeman, with grave 
reverence for one so learned, so distinguished, 
and at the same time so unique in misfortune. 
It reminded him of the wonderful things in 
the Sunday papers, and he believed. “No, 
sir ; to-day is Thursday.” 

" Thursday ? ” said the Professor, affect- 
ing bewilderment with considerable skill. 
" Thursday ? ” he repeated, turning to the 
chemist, who said solemnly — 

“ Thursday, sir ! ” 

“ Oh, poor dear ! ” immediately howled 
Mrs. Randle. 


117 


THE GREEN OVERCOAl. 


" Be quiet,” shouted Professor Higginson 
very rudely. “If it is Thursday,” he con- 
tinued to the others, dropping his voice again, 

“ this is a more serious thing than I had 
imagined. Why, three whole days . 

and yet, wait ” (and here he extended one 

hand and covered his eyes with the other) 

“ I seem to have an impression of . . . 

cold meat ... a room . . . voices 

. . . no, it is gone.” 

The younger policeman pulled out a note- 
book and an extremeh^ insufficient pencil, 
which was at once short, thick, and bald- 
headed. 

“ Lost any valuables, sir ? ” he began. 

The Professor slapped his pockets, and then 
suddenly remembered that he had changed 
his clothes. 

“ No,” he mused. “ No, not to my know- 
ledge. I had my watch” (he began to tick I* 
off on his fingers) “ and a few shillings change 
. . .” But for the life of him he couldn’t 
decide whether to lose valuables or not. On 
the whole he decided not to. 

“ No,” (after careful thought), “ no, I lost 
nothing. My boots were very damp as I took 
them off, if that is any clue.” 

The younger policeman was rapidly putting 


IHE GREEN OVERCOAT*. 

it all down in the official shorthand. 
Habit compelled him to make the outline, 

“The Prisoner persistently denied ” He 

scratched it out and put, “ The Professor told 

us that he had not ” Then came the 

second question — 

“ In what part of the town, sir, might it be 
that you knew yourself again, sir, so to 
speak ? ” 

“ I have told you, close by here,” said 
Professor Higginson. 

“ Yes, but coming which way like ? ” 

Here was a magnificent opening ! He had 
never thought of that. He considered what was 
the most central quarter of the town, what least 
suggested a suburb. He remembered a dirty 
old mid-Victorian church, now the cathedral, 
in the heart of the city, and he said — 

“ St. Anne’s, it was close to St. Anne’s.” 

Then he remembered — ^most luckily — that 
there were witnesses to his having come up 
the street from exactly the opposite quarter, 
and he added — 

“ At least that ’s where I began to remember 
a little ; but I wandered about, I didn’t 
remember the street for a good hour, and even 
when I came here I was still troubled . . * 
Mrs. Randle will tell you ” 


119 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“ Oh,” began Mrs. Randle, " Lord knows, 

he gave a cry that loud on seeing me ” but 

the policeman did not w'ant to hear this. 

He put this third question — 

“ About what time might this be ? ” 
About,” said the Professor, speaking 
slowly but thinking at his fastest, “ about 
. . . about three hours ago. It was still 
dark. It was getting light. I remember 
going through the streets, getting a little 
clearer from time to time as to what I was 
doing and where I was.” 

The manoeuvre was not without wisdom. 
Had he made the time shorter there would 
have been inquiries, and they might have lit 
upon the three men in the shelter, and that 
detestable Green Overcoat might have come 
in once more to ruin his life. As it was, who- 
ever the middle-aged person in battered 
evening clothes may have been who had 
entered the shelter on that morning, it could 
not be he. The policeman strapped the 
elastic over his note-book again. 

“ That '11 do, sir,” he said kindly. 

Mrs. Randle was swift to find a couple of 
glasses of beer, which beverage the uncertain 
hours of their profession permit the constabu- 
lary to consume at any period whatsoever 


120 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 

of the day or night, and what I may 
call “ The Great Higginson Lost Memory 
Case ” started on its travels round the 
world. 

During the remainder of that day — the 
Thursday — Professor Higginson was prodigal 
enough of his experience. It was a great 
thing for a Professor of Subliminal Psychology 
to have come in direct touch in this way with 
one of the most interesting of psychical 
phenomena. Everyone he met in the next 
hours had a question to ask, and every ques- 
tion did Professor Higginson meet with a 
strange facility ; but, alas ! with renewed and 
more complex untruth. Had he any recol- 
lections ? Yes ... Yes. Were there faces ? 
Yes, there were faces. Drawn faces. He 
could say more (he hinted), for the thing was 
still sacred to him. 

One cross-questioned a little too closely 
about the sense of Time. Had he an idea of 
its flight during that singular vision ? Yes. 
Yes . . . In a way. He remembered a conversa- 
tion — a long one — and a flight : a flight 
through space. 

What ! a flight through space ? 

He told the story with much fuller details 
that very morning about noon to his most 


lai 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


intimate personal friend, the editor of the 
second paper in Ormeston. 

He told it again at the club at lunch to a 
small audience with the zest of a man who 
is describing a duel of his. He told it to 
a larger audience over coffee after lunch. 
He went back to arrange matters at the 
University, and to say that he could take 
up his work the next morning. 

It was to the Dean (who was also a Pro- 
fessor of Chemistry), to the Vice-Principal, 
and to the Chaplain that he had to unbosom 
himself on this official occasion. All were 
curious, and by the time they had cheered 
him, the desperate man’s relation had grown 
to be one of the most exact and beautiful 
little pieces of modern psychical experience 
conceivable. All the functionings of the sub- 
conscious man in the absence of a co-ordina- 
ting consciousness were falling into place, and 
the World that is beyond this World had 
been visited by the least likely of the sons 
of men. 

As one detail suggested another, the neces- 
sity for a coherent account bred what mere 
experience could never have done. 

Now and then in these conversations Pro- 
fessor Higginson thought he heard a note of 


122 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


doubt in some inquirer’s voice. It spurred 
him to new confirmations, new lies. 

For his mathematical colleague he swore 
to the fourth dimension ; for his historical one, 
to a conspectus of time. “ Little windows into 
the past,” he called it, the horrid man ! 

Then — then in a moment of whirl he did the 
fatal thing. It was a Research man called 
Garden who goaded him. 

Garden had said — 

“What were the faces? What were the 
voices ? How did they differ from dreams ? ” 

Professor Higginson felt the spur point. 

“ Garden,” he said, facing that materialist 
with a marvellously solemn look, “ Garden 
. . . How do you know reality ? I saw 
. . . I heard” He shuddered, success- 

fully. “ Garden,” he went on abruptly, 
” have you ever loved one — who died ? ” 

“ Bless you, yes ! ” answered Garden cheer- 
fully. 

“ Garden ! ” continued the Philosopher in 
a deep but shaken voice, “ I too have lost 
where I loved — and ” (he almost whispered 
the rest) “ and we held communion during that 
brief time.” 

“ What ! ” said Garden. He stared at the 
tall, lanky Professor of Psychology. He didn’t 


123 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


believe, not a word. But it was the first time 
he had come across that sort of lunacy, and it 
shocked him. “ What ! The Dead ? ” 

Mr. Higginson nodded twice with fixed lips 
and far-aw^ay eyes. 

" There is proof,” he said, and was gone. 

♦ ♦ * ♦ 

Garden stared after him, then he shrugged 
his shoulders, muttered," Mad as a hatter ! ” 
and turned to go his way. It was about five 
o’clock. 

♦ * * ♦ 

Among other things which the Devil had 
done in that period with which this story 
deals was the planting in Ormeston of a 
certain servant of his, by name George 
Babcock. 

George Babcock had come to Ormeston 
after a curious and ill-explained, a short and 
a decisive episode in his life. He had begun 
as a young theorist, who had startled Europe 
from the foreign University where he was 
studying by a thesis now forgotten abroad, 
but one the memory of which still lingered 
in England, for a paper had boomed it. 

It had been a scornful and triumphant 
refutation of the Hypnotists of Nancy. 


124 


1 





A certain servant of his, by name George Babcock, 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


George Babcock had rolled the Nancy school 
over and over, and for a good five years the 
young English writer, with his perfect com- 
mand of German, had been the prophet of 
common sense. “ Hypnotism,” as that school 
called their charlatanry, was done for, a series 
of clumsy frauds, a thing of illusions, special 
apparatus and lies. 

Unfortunately for civilisation, the super- 
stitions of the Hypnotists, as we know, pre- 
vailed, and European science has grown 
ashamed since that day of its earlier and 
manlier standpoint. It has learnt to talk of 
auto-suggestion. It has fallen so low as to 
be interested in Lourdes. 

Long before 1890 George Babcock’s book 
was ruined abroad. But George Babcock was 
a man with a knowledge of the road, and while 
his reputation, dead upon the Continent, 
was at its height in England, he suddenly 
appeared, no longer as a theorist, but as a 
practising doctor in London. He had bor- 
rowed the money for the splash on the strength 
of that English reputation, which he retained, 
and for ten years he was a Big Man. It was 
said that he had saved a great deal of money. 
He certainly made it. Then there came — no 
one .knows v/hat. The professionals who were 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


most deeply in the know hinted at a quarrel 
with Great Ladies upon the secrets of his 
trade — and theirs. 

At any rate, for another three years after 
the little episode, George Babcock’s name took 
a new and inferior position in the Daily Press. 
It appeared in the lists of City dinners, at 
meetings, at the head of middle-class 
“ leagues ” and “ movements ” that failed. 
When it was included in the list of a country- 
house party that party would not be of quite 
the first flight, and, what was terribly signifi- 
cant to those few who can look with judg- 
ment and pity on the modern world, articles 
signed by the poor fellow began to appear in 
too great a quantity in the magazines. He 
even published three books. It was very sad. 

Then came the incorporation of the Uni- 
versity of Ormeston, or, as people preferred 
to call it from those early days, the Guelph 
University, after the name of a patron, and 
the Prime Minister’s private secretary had 
been sent to suggest, as the head of the Medical 
School, the name of George Babcock. 

He was neither a knight nor a baronet, but 
Ormeston did not notice that. The old 
glamoui of his name lingered in that pros- 
perous town. A married cousin of the Mayor 


127 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


of that year, whose wife dined out in London, 
reported his political power. The merchants 
and the rest in the newly-formed Senate of 
the University timidly approached the Great 
Man, and the Great Man jumped at it. 

He had now for five years been conducting 
his classes at the absurdly low salary of £goo 
a year. 

George Babcock remained after all his 
escapades and alarms — such as they may have 
been — a man of energy and of singular 
organising power, an Atheist of course, and 
one possessed both of clear mental vision and 
a sort of bodily determination that would not 
fail him until his body failed. His face and 
his shoulders were square, his jaw too was 
strong, the looseness of his thick mouth w'as 
what one would expect from what was known 
about him by those who knew. His eyes 
were fairly steady, occasionally sly ; his brows 
and forehead handsomely clean ; his hair 
thick and strongly grey. 

This was the figure Garden saw coming up 
the street towards him as Professor Higginson 
shambled off, already a distant figure, nearing 
the gates of the College (for it was in the street 
without that the Philosopher had met the 
Research man and made that fatal movch 


128 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


To say that Garden was glad to meet 
Babcock would be to put it too strongly ; no 
one was ever glad to meet Babcock. But to 
say that he was indifferent to the chance of 
blabbing would not be true ; no one is in- 
different to the chance of blabbing. 

“ I say, Babcock," he said, checking the 
advancing figure with his raised hand, “ old 
Higginson ’s gone mad.” 

Babcock smiled uglily. 

“Yes, he has,” said Garden, “ saying all 
sorts of things about that little trouble he had. 
Saw ghosts ! ” 

“ They all do,” said Babcock grimly. 

“ Oh, yes, I know,” answered Garden, eager 
for the importance of his tale, “but he ’s got 
it all pat ! Says he can prove it ! ” 

Garden nodded mysteriously. 

“ He gave me some details, you know,” 
went on Garden most irresponsibly ; then he 
pulled himself up. He wanted to have 
something important to say, but he was a 
nervous man in handling those tarradiddles 
which are the bulk of interesting conversa- 
tion. 

Babcock looked sceptical. 

“ What sort of details ? ” he sneered. 

“ Oh, I ’m not allowed to tell you,” said 


9 


129 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


Garden uneasily, “ but it was very striking, 
really it was.” 

Then suddenly he broke away. He felt 
he might be led on, and he didn’t want to 
make a fool of himself. He rather wished he 
hadn’t spoken. Babcock let him go, and as 
Garden disappeared in his turn the Doctor 
paced more slowly. He was not disturbed, 
but he was interested. 

Everyone in the University had heard of 
Higginson’s Spiritual Experience, everyone 
was already talking of it ; that wasn’t the 
odd part. The odd part (he mused) was 
a man like Garden taking it seriously. . . . 

The more Mr. Babcock thought of it the 
more favourably a certain possibility pre- 
sented itself. 

He made his way towards the telephone- 
room at the Porter’s Lodge, asked them to 
call up a number in London, and waited 
patiently until he obtained it. 

He took the full six minutes, and it will 
interest those who reverence our anc ent 
constitution to know that the person to whom 
George Babcock was talking was a peer — one 
of those few peers who live at the end of a 
wire, and not only a peer but the owner of 
many things. 


130 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


The man at the other end of the wire was 
the owner of railway shares innumerable, for 
the nioment of stores of wheat (for he was 
gambling in that), but in particular of many 
newspapers, chief of which a sheet which had 
thrust back into their corners all older, milder 
things, and had come to possess the mind of 
England. This premier newspaper was called 
The Howl; nor did the writer of that letter 
own The Howl only, but altogether some 
eighty other rags ; nor in this country only 
was he feared, though he was more feared in 
this country than in any other, 

It^was his boast that he could make and 
unmake men, and every politician in turn had 
blacked his boots, and he had made judges, 
and had at times decided upon peace and 
war. A powerful man ; known to his 
gutter (before he bought his peerage) as Mr. 
Cake ; a flabby man — and vulgar ? Oh ! my 
word ! 

This man at the other end of the wire knew 
much, too much, about George Babcock, and 
George Babcock knew that he knew it. From 
time to time George Babcock, sickening at 
the recollection of such knowledge privy^only 
to him and to his' lordship, was moved to 
services which, had he been a free man, he 


131 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


would not have undertaken. He was about 
to perform such a service now. 

He told the story briefly to that telephone 
receiver. He insisted on the value of it. The 
man at the other end of the wire was very 
modern. He had a list of the expresses before 
him. He told George Babcock to expect a 
letter that would come up by the six o’clock 
and reach Ormeston at 8.5. George Babcock 
would get his instructions by that train. 
At 8.5, therefore, George Babcock, bound 
to service and not over-willing, was on the 
platform, took the packet from the guard, 
feed him, opened it, and read. 

The letter was not type-written. It was a 
familiar letter, and it was signed of course by 
a single uninitialed name, for was not its 
author a peer ?• 

* * * ♦ 

Meanwhile, the unfortunate Professor of 
Psychology was wandering within the College 
buildings from room to room, from friend to 
friend, and spreading everywhere as he went 
a long and tortuous train of falsehood and of 
doom. 

Just before dinner, sitting with the Vice- 
Principal’s wife in her drawing-room, he added 
one very beautiful little point which had 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


previously escaped him— how during what must 
have been the middle of his curious trance he 
had heard the most heavenly singing— he who 
could not tell one note from another on 
ordinary days!. The Chaplain had already 
used him before ten o’clock as a proof of the 
immortality of the soul in his notes for 
next Sunday’s sermon, and a local doctor 
had been particularly interested to hear, as 
they met just before dinner, that though he 
may have had food and drink during that long 
period, the only thing he could remember was 
cold meat, and that only as something seen, 
not as something consumed. 

“ What kind of cold meat ? ” the doctor 
had said ; but Professor Higginson, whose 
brain was not of the poet’s type, had only 
answered, “ Oh, just cold meat.” 

Thus by the evening of that Thursday was 
the dread process of publicity begun. 

That night, while all slept, in the two 
Ormeston newspaper offices, shut up in their 
little dog kennels, the leader writers were 
scribbling away at top speed, dealing with 
Subliminal Consciousness and the Functions 
Unco-ordinated by Self-cognisant Co-ordina- 
tion, the one from the Conservative, the other 
from the Liberal standpoint. 


133 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 

Even the Socialist weekly paper which went 
to press on Friday was compelled to have a 
note upon the subject ; but knowing that it 
must bring in some reference to the nationalis- 
ation of the means of production and the 
Parsonic Fraud, it basely said that Professor 
Higginson was, like every other supporter of 
the Bourgeois State, a so-called Christian, 
in which slander, as I need hardly inform the 
reader, there was not a word of truth. 

And so, having dined well with his Vice- 
Principal and had his fill. Professor Higginson 
set out by night to seek his lodgings. 


134 


CHAPTER VII. 


In which Professor Higginson goes on tasting 
them. 

Professor Higginson was glad to get back 
to his lodgings on that Thursday night ; he 
was beginning to feel the weariness of the 
Lion. 

I will not deny that some vanity had arisen 
in him, for he felt the approach of a little 
local fame. Now vanity, especially when it 
is connected with the approach of a little 
local fame, is not good for Professors, even in 
this world ; for their chances in the next it is 
fatal. It is a foible only too acceptable as an 
instrument to the Enemy of Souls. 

Full of this vague sensation of well-being, 
it was a shock to Professor Higginson to 
find Geoge Babcock waiting for him in his 
rooms. 

Hidden in the right-hand pocket of George 
Babcock’s coat was the letter. It was not 
type-written. It was a familiar letter. It was 


^35 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


signed by a single uninitialed name, for its 
author was a peer. 

Higginson came into the room nervously, 
less and less pleased to see who his visitor 
was, but that visitor had something very 
definite tc do. 

“ I say, Higginson,” he cried suddenly, 
rising as suddenly at his colleague’s entry 
into the room, “ you know I don’t believe a 
word of it ! ” 

“ A word of what ? ” said Higginson tartly. 

“ Oh, you know,” said Babcock, sitting 
down again as did Higginson also, and fixing 
the psychologist with, his strong eyes. 
“ You ’ve told everybody, and everybod5^’s 
talking. All this ‘ psychical experience,’ 
Higginson ! All these — damn it, why you ’re 
talking ghosts now ! ” , 

He sat back and waited. 

“ Babcock,” said Higginson, in much the 
same tones as he had used to fire upon the 
less defended Mr. Garden, “Babcock, you 
won’t believe a plain human tale? The 
Evidence of a witness ? True evidence, 
Babcock ? ” 

“ Oh, I believe you had some — some, well, 
let ’s say some mental experience, all right ; 
but I don’t believe in all that monkey business. 


136 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


, . . No ! . . . I ’m interested, Hig- 
ginson. That 's why I Ve come.” He leant 
forward. “I’m really interested.” 

“ You don’t believe that I saw . . . what 
I say I saw ? ” said Higginson solemnly. 

“ Why, my dear Higginson, you know — 
one sees things when one ’s asleep. Simple ? ” 
“ You don’t believe,” reiterated Hig- 
ginson, “ that I heard what I say I heard ? ” 

“ Oh, I believe that right enough,” 
answered Babcock impatiently. “ What ’s 
' hearing ’ ? My dear fellow, for one case 
of optical suggestion there are ten cases of 
aural ! ” 

“ Suggestion be ! ” cried Professor 

Higginson too suddenly. 

“ It ’s a funny thing, Higginson,” said 
Babcock, looking curiously at him and pinning 
his colleague down with that look, “ it ’s a 
funny thing that you spook Johnnies don’t 
seem to know what evidence is. . . . Ever 
heard a clever counsel briefed in Poison? 
... I have.” 

“ I ” began Professor Higginson, but 

Babcock interrupted. 

“ Now, I knew a fellow once in Italy, not 
like you, my dear Higginson, not half so 
honest a man, but he had got hold of what 


137 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


convinces people. . . . It ’s not what 's 

true, it ’s what convinces.” - 

Babcock smiled oddly as he said this. * 
“ He didn’t publish it . . . and ” (this 
more slowly) “ I will tell you what it was, for 
it impressed me. He came into my room 
early one morning — I knew him well enough — 
and he told me the whole story of Adowa. 
The telegraph hadn’t brought it, Higginson ” 
(shaking a finger). “ We hadn’t heard of it. 
No one in Europe, no one in Egypt. The 
fight was . . . well, ’lowing for longitude 
. . . not twelve hours old. And, mind 
you, he didn’t give a sort of hint ; he didn’t 
work your telepathy stunt.” Babcock began 
to emphasise. “ He described the whole 
thing quite clearly : with little men and 
bushes and hot sand standing clear, like 
three or four little coloured pictures. Eh ? 
Coloured. Painted. You could smell the heat. 
And he saw a sort of local storm on the scrub 
in the valley ; he did ! — ^least, he said he did 1 
He saw the poor fellows left behind — the 
wounded, you know : he saw the faces of the 
torturers.” Babcock stopped a second and 
changed his tone. He looked unpleasantly 
in earnest. “ He told me I might make 
money over it,” he went on. “I was in 


138 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT, 


touch with one of the English papers. Like 
a fool, I didn’t believe him. After that the 
telegrams came in . . 

Professor Higginson was watching his 
colleague ; his head stood forward on his long 
neck. He was fascinated and a little 
frightened. 

“ Well,” said Babcock, sitting down again 
and speaking with less apparent purpose, 
“ that 's all. I think he was a charlatan. 
I don’t know how he got the thing. I ’ve 
known news spread in Africa among savages 
a thousand miles in half a day. . . . Any- 
how, that sort of thing might convince. To 
tell you the honest truth, Higginson, your 
story doesn’t” 

Poor Mr. Higginson flushed. He did not 
like to be talked to like that. Babcock 
waited for his reply. It came at last, and 
came in the expected form. 

“ I can tell you, Babcock,” began Higginson 
slowly, “ something I ’ve told no one else. 
You ’ve driven me to do it. You know — 
yqu 've heard — that . . . that, well, that 
I saw: that I not only heard singing, but 
saw ? I saw a multitude of men — and women, 
Babcock.” 

He passed his hand over his face and wished 


139 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


himself well out of it — ^but Sin is a hard 
master. 

“ Well ? ” asked Babcock, quite unchanged 
in face. 

“ Well," proceeded Professor Higginson, 
still more slowly, " this is what I have got to 
tell you. Many, all of those faces — and mind 
you they talked to me, Babcock, they talked 
to me ” (the Professor was warming to his 
work ) — “ I didn’t know. But I knew one, 
Babcock,” and here Higginson’s voice fell (as 
his trick had grown to be during these recitals) 
to a deeper tone. “ Do you know who it 
was ? ... It was poor Morris ! " 

Babcock rose again and came and stood 
over the wretched Philosopher. The Philoso- 
pher looked up like a child, an erring child. 

“ Good Heavens ! " sighed Babcock. 
“ What extraordinary ideas you have ! 
That ’s not what people notice. Why, men 
can do that in their sleep.” Then with sudden 
vigour, “ What else did you see, Higginson ? 
Something you couldn’t have known ? Some- 
thing nobody knew ? ” 

Professor Higginson thought. Detailed 
imaginative fiction had never been in his line, 
though he had dealt in it pretty freely all that 
day. He thought hard and confusedly ; but 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


what he said at the end of the process was 
startling enough. 

“ Very well, Babcock, listen to this. There 
was in that crowd a figure very different from 
the others — a mad figure, you will say. Most 
mournful eyes, Babcock, and — well, it ’s 
unpleasant, but it smelt of seaweed.” 

“ Oh ! ” said Babcock. “ Was it dressed ? ” 

Mr. Higginson thought a minute. 

“Yes, it was dressed” he ventured, groping 
his way. “Yes, it was dressed. ... It 
was very oddly dressed. You know . . . 

you see . . . it had dripping wet clothes 

on, dark blue. But, Babcock” (here Higgin- 
son had an inspiration, and very proud of 
it he was), “ it had no arms ! ” 

“Oh,” said Babcock, musing, “it had no 
arms.” 

There was a gap in their conversation, an 
end to Babcock’s pushing, an end to Higgin- 
son’s lying. A let up. An interval of repose. 

It was Babcock who broke it. 

“ Well,” he sighed, “ I can’t make head or 
tail of all this, Higginson ! Anyhow, I must 
be going. It ’s interesting. I know you 
think you had these experiences, but, frankly, 
all that kind of thing ’s beyond me. I don’t 
think it ’s there. I think it floats in men’s 



But, Babcock, it had no arms ! '* 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


brains — false, like dreams,” and he got up 
to go. 

But for the next half hour he was at the 
telephone again, talking to London and to the 
Ancient Aristocracy of Britain and to The Howl. 

When he rose from the machine it was just 
eleven. The Howl prints news up to two 
o’clock. Smart Rag ! 

Next morning (Friday), when he came 
downstairs. Professor Higginson received a 
slight but very unpleasant shock. It was a 
shock of a kind one does not often receive. 

Like all the rest of the world. Professor 
Higginson rCad The Hotvl at breakfast. The 
Howl is very well edited ; it gives you your 
thrill in a short compass, and every day has 
some new Portent to present. 

That day the Portent was Sleeping Sickness 
on a Huge Scale in London. Ten millionaires 
were down with it and a politician was 
threatened. It wasn’t true, and there was a 
leader on it. But true or false, it was of less 
consequence to Mr. Higginson than one fairly 
prominent but short item upon the front page. 
It was not the chief item on it ; the chief item 
was some rubbish about a man it called “ the 
Kaiser.” It was perhaps the second dr the 
third piece of news in importance. 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT, 


END OF A MYSTERIOUS CAREER, 


NOBLEMAN FOUND DROWNED ON 
BRETON COAST. 


ROMANTIC STORY, 


Brest, Thursday, May ^th. 

Fishermen from the remote and old-world 
village of Karamel report a gruesome discovery 
upon their rock-bound coast. The Count 
Michaehs de Quersaint, a well-known eccentric 
character in this district, evidently lost his life 
by shipwreck some few days ago in the neigh- 
bourhood, It was the Count’s habit to cruise 
up and down this coast during the summer 
months incognito, in a small ten-tonner, with 
a couple of men for crew, the unfortunate 
man having been bom without arms, hke a 
certain famous Irish landlord of the last 
generation, and being very sensitive upon the 
point. The boat has not been found, but the 
bodies of three men, one of which is un- 
doubtedly the Count, have been washed up 
on the rocks. The features are unrecognisable, 
but there can be no doubt of Count Michaelis's 
identity. The corpse was clothed in the blue- 
serge yachting suit which the Count habitually 
wore on these expeditions, and the body was 


144 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


that of a man without arms. In the opinion 
of Dr. Relebecque, whom the Government 
has dispatched to Karamel, the disaster must 
have taken place about four days ago, and 
most probably during the gale of last Monday 
night. 

The corpse was dressed in blue. It was 
drowned. It had no arms — a sort of 
monster. 

. Professor Higginson was unhappy, very 
unhappy indeed. He also felt sick. 

Gusts of fear swept over his simple soul. 
There were moments when he almost smelt 
the pit, and he groaned in spirit. 

So powerful was the effect upon him, that 
he was half persuaded of some connection 
between his foolish lie and doubtful super- 
human powers. He didn’t like it. It gave 
him a sense of possession. It left him not his 
own master. 

He would not take up the paper again. Pie 
left it folded upon his table, and went out a 
little groggily to walk up the street to College 
and to take his class. 

But when Professor Higginson appeared 
before his class he was nervously conscious 
that a great number of young eyes were 


10 


145 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


watching him with quite as much amusement 
as interest. 

Not that he was stared at. Provincials 
are too polite for that, and the earnest pro- 
vincials who attend their Universities are 
perhaps the politest class in England. But 
whenever he looked up from his notes he met 
the glance shy and suddenly withdrawn, now 
from the left, now from the right, which told 
him that of the fifty or sixty students before 
him not one was ignorant of the Great 
Adventure. 

His subject that morning was The Hyper- 
graphical Concatenation of the Major Sensory 
Criteria and Psycho-hylomorphic Phenomena 
in their Relation of the Subjective to the 
Objective Aspects of Reflex Actions — a 
fascinating theme ! And one which, upon any 
other day, he would have analysed with the 
mouldy bravura that he had cultivated. 

But that morning something flagged. The 
interest of the class was elsewhere, and Pro- 
fessor Higginson knew only too well where it 
was ! His misfortune or accident was 
already so much public property that the 
youths and maidens and the respectful 
dependants and servitors of the University 
as well were universally acquainted with it. 


ii)6 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 

He felt again that touch of vanity in the midst 
of his embarrassment ! 

The great clock of the University buildings 
boomed out noon. He shut his notes, looked 
with his weary eyes at the young faces before 
him, now lifted to his own, and said — 

“ Next time we will take the Automatic 
Functions of Guest and Bunny. It is new 
ground, and I think it will interest you.” 

A timid, fair-haired girl to the rear of the 
left centre asked whether they need buy the 
third edition ; she only had the second. He 
said, full of thought for her purse, that there 
was no necessity to do such a thing, whereat 
the student added — ; 

“ But, Professor Higginson, it deals with 
the Subliminal Phenomena of a Loss of 
Mem ” 

“ That ’ll do ! That ’ll do ! ” cried Pro- 
fessor Higginson sharply. 

He could have sworn that he heard a titter ! 
He looked up wearily at the window as his 
class tramped out. 

It was raining. 

When he had changed his Cap and Gown for 
the bowler hat, umbrella and mackintosh of 
his civilisation, he stepped out under the arch- 
way into the street, glad to be rid of his duties 


147 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


for the day, profoundly glad to be alone. He 
had fallen, as his habit was, into a conversation 
with himself, half aloud, happily oblivious of 
the suspicious glances of passers-by, which he 
would have imagined to be testimony to his 
unhappily growing fame, when he received a 
sharp blow upon the back from the open hand 
of some vigorous person, and turned round 
with an exclamation to see no less than 
Babcock — again. 

Professor Higginson turned under his 
umbrella to catch that figure at his side, and 
saw beyond it a very different figure — a figure 
draped entirely in a long raincoat of some sort 
trailing almost to the ground ; peeping above 
the front of that coat was a clerical dog- 
collar, and above the clerical dog-collar a long 
face, the eyes of which always looked towards 
some spot far off. 

“ Well, Higginson,” said Babcock, “ you Ve 
done it now ! ” 

“ Done what ? ” said Professor Higginson, 
knowing only too weU what he had done. 

“ Made yourself famous,” said George 
Babcock shortly. 

“ I don’t know that ! ” said Professor 
Higginson, and he nervously wondered 
whether the drip upon his back were from his 


148 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


own umbrella or his neighbour’s. “ Of course, 
a thing like that will be talked about.” 

“ It ’s what you said about the heavenly 
singing that did it,” said George Babcock 
brutally ; and as he said it Professor Hig- 
ginson, glancing at him sideways, saw a 
definite curl downwards upon the big, loose lips. 

As they passed the door of the University 
Common Room, Babcock halted and said — 

“ Well, I ’m going in ! Are you coming 
with me, Higginson ? ” 

“ No ! ” said Professor Higginson, with 
singular determination. 

“ All right,” said Babcock, not insisting. 
“ Charles will see you home. I ought to have 
told you, this is my wife’s brother Charles ; 
he ’s a parson,” he added rudely, as though 
the external signs of that profession were 
absent. “You go with him, Charles. It ’s 
on your way. Tell Clara I ’m coming. Back 
before one.” 

And George Babcock the strong pushed 
through the swing doors of the Club, and left 
his brother-in-law and his colleague in the 
rain outside. 

Professor Higginson and the religious person 
walked for a few minutes in silence. For one 
thing the Philosopher did not know the name 


149 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


of the minister, and it was the minister who 
first broke that silence. 

“ You Ve heard singing ! ” he said 
abruptly, and as he said it he still stared in 
front of him as at some distant point beyond 
this world, and steered himself by his great 
nose. He did not look at his companion, and 
he repeated in tones of subdued wonder, 
“You heard singing. I read it in the 
Ormeston paper to-day.” 

Professor Higginson had never in his life 
been rude to a man at the first meeting. He 
did not know how it was done. 

“ Yes,” he said . . . “ after a fashion.” 

“ Ah ! ” said the Reverend Charles, and 
they went on another fifty yards in silence 
through the rain. The streets were quite 
deserted. 

Professor Higginson was appalled to find 
his companion’s hand laid firmly upon his 
shoulder ; the other hand held the umbrella 
above. The parson looked immensely into 
his eyes. 

“ I wish I were jmu,” he said, “ or, rather, 
I don’t wish I were you.” Then he loosed 
hold, and they walked on together again. 

Professor Higginson was profoundly un- 
comfortable. He was Professor of Subliminal 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


Psychology, and far be it from him to fall into 
the vulgar errors of the materialist, but the 
man did seem to him a little cracked ; and 
when he whispered for the third time, “You 
heard singing ! ” Professor Higginson was in 
that mood wherein weak men run. Now Pro- 
fessor Higginson prided himself that he was 
not a weak man. 

The Reverend Charles began talking very 
loudly to himself, not in the half-tones of self- 
communion common to the academic temper, 
but quite out loud, almost as though he were 
preaching. 

“ Singing ! ‘ Lovely chaunting voices, 

singing to the sound of harps, and in that 
light which dieth not, for they that stand in 
it are the inheritors of the world to come.’ . . . 
. . . That ’s from Pearson,” he added 

abruptly, changing to a perfectly natural 
tone. “ Do you know Pearson’s work ? ” 

“ No,” said Professor Higginson, immensely 
relieved at the change in the tone. “No, to 
tell the truth, I do not.” 

“ He saw what you saw,” said the Reverend 
gentleman, nodding gravely under his 
umbrella as he strode forward ; “ but he 

hadn’t your chance of convincing the world. 
No ! ” 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


And here he shook his head as gravely as 
he had nodded it. 

The rain still fell. The wet street still 
stretched out before them. 

“ It has been given to many men,” began 
the Reverend Charles again in a totally 
different tone, this time the intellectual 
interrogative, “ to see the hidden places, but 
your chance ? ” 

Professor Higginson said nothing, he was 
beginning to feel uncomfortable again. He 
was not a materialist — what man of his great 
attainments could be ? But on the other hand 
there was such a thing as going too far in the 
other direction. Then he reasoned with 
himself. The Reverend Charles had no 
weapon. He, the Professor, was a tall man, 
and — hang it all ! he had no right to be 
certain that the man was mad. 

They had come to Professor Higginson’s 
door. There, in the pouring rain. Professor 
Higginson put in the latch key, opened the 
door, and asked in common courtesy whether 
his colleague’s brother-in-law would come in. 

His colleague’s brother-in-law half shut a 
dripping umbrella, held out a huge and bony 
hand, fixed the embarrassed Don with luminous, 
distant eyes, grasped his nervously offered 


152 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


hand in return, and said sadly, with a world 
of meaning — 

“ No ! I will not come in ! I will leave you 
to Those Voices of the Great Peace ! ” 

Then it was that Professor Higginson 
noticed, standing in the mean little hall 
humbly enough, a mean little man, short, 
wearing a threadbare coat, and a drenched 
bowler hat. 

“ Professor Higginson,” said this apparition 
gently, “ Professor Higginson, I presume ? ” 

“ What ? ” snapped the Professor, still 
holding the Parson’s hand, like the handle of 
a pump. 

“ May I see you a moment ? I represent 
The Sunday Machine.” 

“No,” thundered Professor Higginson, 
dropping the reverend hand in his excite- 
ment. “I’m tired, it ’s not lunch time yet, 
I don’t know what you mean ! ” 

The little man was at once flabbergasted 
and hurt. The Reverend Charles smiled a 
cadaverous smile, but one as luminous as his 
eyes. 

“ May I supply the place ? ” he said in a 
voice that was musical in two tones. 

He stood there winningly in the open 
doorway with his dripping umbrella and 


153 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


his huge, unoccupied right hand still held 
out. 

The little reporter, not quite understanding 
what he should do, grasped that great hand, 
just as Professor Higginson hand grasped it, 
and then stood helpless. 

Professor Higginson was at the end of his 
patience. He said sharply — 

“You must come again ! You must come 
again ! This isn’t the moment.” 

In another minute he would have apolo- 
gised for his abruptness, but the little 
journalist had pride and had alread}^ gone 
out, without an umbrella, thrusting his 
pathetic little note-book into his threadbare 
pocket ; and the Reverend brother-in-law, 
after giving one great revealing look into the 
darkness of the hall, had gone out also. 
Professor Higginson heard the door slam 
behind him: His curiosity prompted him to 
gaze upon them out of a window. They were 
going off together through the rain, into the 
heart of the town, and it seemed to the 
Philosopher that the Parson was more 
animated than before. He turned to his 
companion continually, and his gestures were 
broad. More fame was brewing ! 

All that Friday afternoon he kept his room. 


154 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


He forbade Mrs. Randle to admit a soul. He 
went to bed early and slept ill. The wages of 
sin is death. 

Professor Higginson came down next 
morning in a very miserable mood. A vast 
pile of letters stood beside his plate, and there 
also he saw The Howl, folded, keeping its 
dreadful secret — ^he was sure it had one for 
him. 

The sheet, with its harmless outer cover, 
its advertisements of patent poisons and its 
bold title menaced him. It fascinated him too. 
He hesitated, reached for it, opened it, and 
the blow fell. 

To his horror, there stared him in the face 
two great lines — ^nay, three, of huge block 
headline type, counting more in the front 
page of that day than the sleeping sickness, 
than the might of Germany, or the turpitude 
of Kalmazoo. 

They ran thus — 

EVIDENCE OF A FUTURE LIFE! 
REVELATIONS OF A GREAT PSYCHOLOGIST. 

PROFESSOR HIGGINSON TESTIFIES TO 

SUPERNATURAL EXPERIENCES. 

RECOGNITION OF THE DEAD. 

155 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


There are parts of the body that grow cold 
under excitement of an unpleasant type. 
Among these may be noted the forehead, 
certain muscles upon either side of the 
vertebrae, and the region of the knees. 

Had Professor Higginson been free to note 
these interesting phenomena proceeding in his 
own person, it might have been of advantage 
to science. All he knew was that he felt 
extremely ill. He pushed his breakfast plate 
away from him, folded the paper into two, 
rose from the table, and stood bending over 
the mantelpiece with his head upon his hand. 
Then he mastered himself, sat down, and 
began to read this — 

Ormeston, May 5th, Friday. 

(From our Special Correspondent.) 

I am authorised to publish an experience 
altogether unique which has befallen one of 
the most respected members of the Guelph 
University, Ormeston, and one, moreover, 
whose peculiar functions at the University 
give him an unchallenged authority on the 
matter in question. 

Professor Higginson, who holds the Chair 
of Subhminal Psychology in the University, is 
in the possession, through a recent experience, 
of undoubted proofs of the existence of the 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


soul of beings of human origin in a state of 
consciousness of other than terrestrial con- 
ditions. 

What followed, and what his pained eyes 
most wearily discerned, was the nature of 
the proof : the impossibility that anyone in 
Ormeston should have heard of that drowned 
thing upon the French coast ; the hour in 
which Professor Higginson had told a colleague 
of the experience — fully four hours before 
the discovery itself was made — five hours 
before the belated Breton telegram had 
reached The Howl from its Paris office. The 
whole thing was a convincing chain. And 
with that dreadful knowledge men have that 
they are in for it. Professor Higginson laid 
the paper down, and wondered how much 
must be endured before the blessed touch 
of death. 


157 


CHAPTER VIII. 


In which Professor Higginson gets those sweets 
by the wagon -load, and also hears how Men 
are Made. 

Professor Higginson stared at the pile of 
letters. He remembered that it was a 
Saturday — a free day ! He groaned at such 
freedom. 

Fame is like the trumpet she bears. The 
trumpet has for the civilian an exhilarating 
sound ; for the house near barracks, too 
familiar with it, a mechanical one ; for the 
mounted trooper at reveillee it has nothing but 
a hideous blare. 

Fame had come to Professor Higginson 
under her less pleasing aspect. He marvelled 
that so much fame had already risen. 
He trembled at what The Howl might now 
raise. A paltry lapse of memory ! A thing 
that might happen to anyone ! And now all 
this ! 

Professor Higginson had under-estimated his 
position in the scientific world of guess-work. 


158 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


There are not many Professors of Psy- 
chology. Only three have written books. 
That his own should have been translated 
into several languages had in the past given 
him pleasure, for he was a provincial man, 
and in that curious mixture which makes 
your academic fellow the funny thing he is, 
the enormity of false pride jostles a very real 
simplicity. 

He opened one letter, then another, then 
another : he intended to answer each 

laboriously at some length with his own hand. 
He had said nothing of confidence or of 
privacy to any man, and these letters were 
the firstfruits of what might be to come ! 

The Howl is read by all England before 
nine. There is a post comes into Ormeston 
at three in the afternoon. By that post, amid 
a mass of material which it appalled him to 
observe, and which included every kind of 
advertisement from every sort of tout, there 
was shot at the Philosopher over two hundred 
letters of more material kind. 

He purposed an attempt to answer even 
these in as much detail as his first batch and 
with his own hand. His Great Adventure 
was becoming a matter of appreciable interest 
to himself, and half to conquer, in some 


159 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


moments, his anxiety and dread. There 
came interludes — as he sat that afternoon 
opening envelope after envelope, and scribbling 
notes for replies — when he really felt as though 
what he were writing was true, and could 
describe with glowing precision all that strange 
psychic phase in which the Sub-Conscious 
self kicks up its heels and gambols at random 
unrestrained by the burden of objectivity. 

Two letters in particular he wrote with the 
utmost care. One to a Cabinet Minister — an 
inveterate meddler who dabbled in such things 
in the intervals of his enormous occupations — 
the other to an ex-Cabinet Minister — another 
inveterate meddler who also dabbled in such 
things in the intervals of his. 

Professor Higginson had never written to 
such great men before. He worked really 
hard, and he composed two masterpieces. 
Upon the addressing of his first ten envdopes 
he spent the best part of twenty minutes with 
books of reference at his side. He wrote 
courteously and at enormous length to a Great 
Lady whose coronet stood out upon the paper 
like a mountain, and whose signature he could 
yet hardly accept as real, so tremendous 
a thing did it seem to him that such an one 
as She should have entered his life. 


i6o 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


He wrote in, extraordinary French to the 
great Specialist at Nancy who had written to 
him in English. He wrote in English to the 
great Specialist of Leipsic who had written 
to him in a German he did not understand, 
but wEose signature and European name 
warranted the nature of the reply. So passed 
all Saturday’s leisure. 

Then came Sunday morning — and a perfect 
ocean of post ! 

It was a mass of correspondence which no 
two secretaries could have dealt with in 
thirty-six hours, and which he left hopelessly 
upon his table until some expert friend might 
tell him how such heaps were cleared. 

His immense work of the day and of the 
night before in answering the Great had left 
him weary and already disgusted with his 
new public position. His terrors returned. 

He had overstrained himself. The room 
was blurred before him. He rose from his 
breakfast and thought to take the air — but 
the empty Sabbath streets brought him no 
relief. 

The Sunday Popular Papers were hot on 
his trail. Their great flaring placards stood 
outside the news shops. 

“ Is there a Heaven ? ” in letters a foot 

i6i 

11 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


long, and underneath, “ Professor Higginson 
says ‘ Yes,' ” almost knoeked him down as 
they stared at him from one hoarding. In 
the loud bill outside a chapel he saw his name 
set forth as the “ subject of the discourse,” 
and before he could snatch away his eyes he 
had caught the phrase ; “ The First Witness.” 
All were welcome. ... He was the First 
Witness ! . . . Oh, God ! 

He could not pursue his walk. He felt 
(quite unnecessarily) that the mass of the 
people whom he passed noted him, and spoke 
of him among themselves as the Author of the 
Great Revelation. He wished again for the 
hundredth time that he had never meddled 
with a lie. Then Satan jerked the bit : Pro- 
fessor Higginson remembered what the truth 
would have brought him ; he thought of the 
dock. And then he ceased to wish for 
anything at all. 

Just as he was turning back from that via 
dolorosa of newspaper placards and sermon- 
notices in the public street, he remembered 
the mass of correspondence, and at that 
moment Heaven sent him a friend — it was 
Babcock. The set face and hard, bepuffed 
eyes seemed to shine on him like a light of 
doom; the great loose mouth seemed eager 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


and hungry to devour a victim of such 
eminence. 

Professor Higginson did not let him take 
the offensive. 

“ Babcock,” he almost shouted in his agony, 
“ you know about letters and things ? ” 

Babcock never looked bewildered. He 
nodded his head determinedly and said — 

“ Go on.” 

“ Well,” continued Professor Higginson, 
fiercely determined that the great subject 
should not turn up, and talking as though by 
steam, “ letters, you know about letters, 
letters, hundreds and hundreds of them. Must 
deal with them, must deal with them this 
morning — now ! ” he almost screamed. 

The heavy Babcock rapidly diagnosed the 
case within his mind. He forbore to 
exasperate the patient. 

“ That ’s all right,” he said about as 
soothingly as ogres can. “ That ’s all right. 
What you want is a shorthand writer.” 

” Two ! ” shouted Higginson, still dragging 
his companion along. 

But the heavy Babcock had organising 
power. 

“ What 's the good of two ? ” he said 
contemptuously. “ You haven't got two 


163 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


mouths — ^nor two brains either,” he added 
unnecessarily. 

“ I want help ! ” said Professor Higginson 
wildly. “ Help ! ” 

“What you want,” said the heavy Babcock, 
with a solid mental grip that mastered his 
victim, “ is someone to open all those 
letters, and sort ’em out, one from the other, 
and see what ought to be said, eh ? Kind 
of thing that ought to be said. Got a 
telephone ? ” 

“ No — yes — no,” said Professor Higginson 
as he reached his door. 

“You ought to have — a man of your 
position,” said Babcock. They had reached 
the door. “ I ’ll come in and help you,” he 
added. 

He did so. He set to work at once did 
Babcock — ^strongly and well. He reproved 
his unhappy colleague again for not having 
a telephone, sent out a servant in a cab with 
the address of a shorthand writer and of a 
typist, newspaper people obtainable of a 
Sunday, and he ordered a machine. Then 
he proceeded with tremendous rapidity to 
slice open the great heap of envelopes with 
a butter knife. 

He sorted out their contents at a pace that 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


Ippalled and yet fascinated the Professor of 
Psychology. By the time the assistants had 
K)me he had them in four heaps : — 

(1) Big-Wigs, 

(2) Money, 

(3) Refusals, and 

(4) (largest of all) Trash. 

Then did he take it upon himself without 
leave to call out to the shorthand writer — 

" First sentence — I hope you will excuse 
my dictating this letter — The pressure of my 
correspondence during the last few days has 
been as you may imagine far too great, etc., 
etc.’ ” 

It was a noble, rotund, convenient sentence. 
It had done work in its time. Higginson 
listened, more fascinated than ever. 

“Thirty copies of that, please,” said Babcock 
sharply. Then he condescended to explain. 

“ That ’ll come after the ‘ Dear Sir or 
Madam.’ ” 

Higginson nodded and added faintly — 

“ Or ‘ My Lady,’ or whatever it may be.” 

“ Yes,” said Babcock, suddenly glancing at 
him with a gimlet look, “ after the opening 
thing whatever it is, ‘ My Lord Duke, or My 
Lord Cardinal, Excellence, or My Lord 
Hell-to-Pay.’ ” 


165 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


He busied himself again with the papers. 

“jThose,” he said, shuffling rapidly a body 
of over forty and suddenly tearing them 
across, “ that ’s trash ; principally lunatics. 
I can tell ’em by the hand.” 

Higginson gazed on helplessly ; he thought 
such destruction imprudent, but he said 
nothing. 

“ These,” went on Babcock, groaning with 
intelligent interest, and licking his forefinger 
to deal with the papers, ” these are refusals.” 

He turned leaf after leaf as though he were 
counting Bank Notes, and decided upon the lot. 

“ Yes ; all refusals.” 

“ May I look ? ” said Professor Higginson 
a little weakly. 

“Yes, if you like,” said Babcock, throwing 
over the pile without looking up, and turning 
to the next. 

The Professor discovered that his colleague 
was right enough. They were invitations all 
of them, and not invitations to accept. Over 
a third were from money-lenders. He made 
a plaintive appeal to keep certain of these 
last, whose gorgeous crests, ancient names, 
and scented paper fascinated him. Babcock 
merely grunted and said, putting his hand 
upon another much smaller pile — 


1 66 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“ These are money, Higginson, money.” 

He read them out. An offer to write for 
a magazine ; a much more lucrative offer to 
write for The Only Daily Paper — but to write 
exclusively — and so forth. 

“ That ’s the one to take,” said Babcock, 
he pulled out a note with an American heading, 
ticked it, and tossing it to the Professor, said — 

“ Shall I answer it for you ? ” 

“ No,” said Higginson, trying to be firm. 

“ Oh, very well then,” said Babcock, 
“ dictate it yourself.” 

And the Professor with infinite verbiage 
gratefully accepted an exclusive article of 
three thousand words for the sum of £250. 

It was the turn of the Big- Wigs, and the 
learned Babcock with unerring eye skipped 
an actor and a Duchess of equal prominence, 
and fished out The Great Invitation. 

It was the first document upon which he 
had condescended to linger, and though it 
was short, he spent some moments over it. 
His face grew grave. 

“ That ’s a big thing ! ” he said solemnly, 
handing it over almost with reverence to the 
Professor of Psycholog}^ 

The Professor read a good London address 
simply stamped upon a good piece of note 


167 


the green overcoat. 

paper. He saw a signature, “ Leonard 
Barclay,” which he vaguely remembered in 
some connection or other. He read an in- 
vitation to deliver an address for the Research 
Club upon any day he might choose, but if 
possible during the next week. The Research 
Club would take for the occasion the large 
room at Gorton’s. That was all. 

“ Lucky beast ! ” murmured Babcock, not 
quite loud enough for the typist to hear, as 
he fixed the reading Higginson with his eye. 

The reading Higginson laid down the letter, 
nodded inanely, and said — 

“ Well, ought I to take that, Babcock ? 
Who are the Research Club ? ” 

“ Who are the Research Club ? Wuff ! 
What a man ! They make men ! ” said Babcock 
bitterly, ” that ’s what they are ! Do you 
mean to say you don’t know?” he went on, 
leaning over and talking earnestly in a low 
tone. “ Do you mean to say you haven’t heard 
of the Research Club ? ” 

“ Somewhere, I dare say,” said Professor 
Higginson confusedly. 

But he hadn’t. It was a great moment 
for Babcock. He had not been among the 
“ nuts ” for nothing. 

“ Come,” said he, like a man who is leading 


i68 





I 


He read an invitation to deliver an address for the 
Research Club. 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


up to a great business, “ you know who 
Leonard Barclay is ? ” 

“ No — ^yes,” said Professor Higginson. 

“Just like your telephone,” sneered 
Babcock. “You don’t know. Well, I ’ll tell 
you. Leonard Barclay ’s the private secretary 
of Mrs. Camp, and he ’s the man who started 
the Connoisseurs in Bond Street, and who 
wrote the book about Colombo. Now do 
you understand ? ” 

Professor Higginson dared not say he didn’t. 
But he still looked helpless. 

“ Good God, man ! ” Babcock went at him 
again, “ he ’s in the very middle of it. I ’ve 
known invitations from the R.C. sent by lots 
of people, but never by him ! ” 

“ Oh ! ” said Higginson, with an appearance 
of comprehension, though in truth the 
mysteries of our plutocracy were for him 
mysteries indeed. “Is he in Parliament ? ” 
“ Parliament ! ” sneered Babcock. “You ’ll 
be asking me if he ’s the Lord Mayor next. 
He ’s Leonard Barclay. . . . Oh, curse it ! 
He ’s it ! He ’s in the middle of the pudding. 
Why, man alive, he made ” (and Babcock 
with glorious indiscretion quoted right off 
the reel) “ the Under-Secretary for the Post 
Ofihce, the General in command of the 5th 


170 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 

Army Corps, the Permanent Commissioner of 
Fine Arts, and a Bishop — a Bishop who really 
counted.” 

He paused for breath, and he emphasised 
his words slowly as he leant back again. 

“ Do you know, Higginson, that Leonard 
Barclay was the man who let Lord Cowfold 
leave the country ? ” 

“ What ! ” said the astonished and provincial 
Professor. “ What do you mean ? , . . 

Lord Cowfold ? — why, he was at Ormeston 
only last May opening the Bulldog Club.” 

“ Well, he ’s in Assisi now,” said Babcock 
grimly, “ Assisi in Italy ; and he can thank 
Leonard Barclay that he ’s not in Dartmoor— 
Dartmoor in Devonshire. Lord, man, you ’re 
in luck ! ” ^ 

“ But I don’t understand,” began Pro- 
fessor Higginson, and then he was silent. 

“ Well, then, I ’ll tell you,” said Babcock, 
gloating in triumph, ” though it ’s difficult to 
believe you ! The Research Club is Bake- 
well and the Prime Minister and Fittleworth 
and Capley and about twenty more like that, 
and when you talk before it, you don’t only 
talk before it, Higginson, you talk before 
anything that counts in Europe and happens 
to be in England at the time.” 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“ But I never heard of it,” said his 
colleague impotently, with the feeling as he 
said it that that was no great proof of any- 
thing. 

“ No,” answered Babcock grimly, “ one 
doesn’t always hear of those things.” 

He jotted down a few words in pencil on 
a bit of paper and shoved it over to the 
Professor. 

“ There,” he said, “ copy that out in your 
own hand. I wouldn’t type-write a thing of 
that sort if I were you — and write it on the 
University paper.” 

Professor Higginson peered at the note and 
read — 

“ My dear Mr. Barclay, 

“ I shall really be very happy. I think 
Wednesday a very good night. Shall we call 
it Wednesday ? Unless I hear from you I 
shall take it for granted ; and at Gorton’s. 
The usual hour, I suppose ? ” 

Professor Higginson gasped. 

“ But isn’t that very familiar, Babcock,” 
he said doubtfully. 

“ Yes, it is,” said Babcock, “ that ’s the 
point.” 


172 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“ And I don’t know the hour,” said Higgin- 
son, still hesitating. 

“ But I do,” said Babcock. “ It ’s half-past 
five. Listen, Higginson, and don’t be a fool. 
That ’s how men are made in this country. 
Do as I tell 5mu.” 

Professor Higginson, wondering vaguely how 
he could be “ made,” and what happened 
when a man was so dealt with by those that 
govern us, took a sheet of the University 
paper, and wrote out carefully that horribly 
familiar note. He hesitated at the super- 
scription. 

“ What is he ?” he asked. 

“ Who ? ” said Babcock. 

“ Why, this Mr. , this something 

Barclay.” 

“You 've got it there, you fool,” said 
Babcock without courtesy. “ Leonard Bar- 
clay, Leonard Barclay, Esq. Simple enough, 
isn’t it ? ” 

“I thought,” murmured Professor Higginson, 
“ I didn’t know — er it was possible that he 
might have had a ” 

“ Father ? ” blurted out Babcock. “ Not 
that I know of. No one knows where he 
comes from, ’xcept Mrs. Camp, and she comes 
from Chicago.” 


173 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


With which words Babcock, the fallen angel, 
stared before him in reverie, and saw rising 
upon the background of that dull provincial 
room all his old lost paradise : the glories of the 
Merschauer’s house in Capon Street, and the 
big day at Cowfold House, and the crowds, 
and the lights that surround our masters 
and his. 

Thus it was that there fell upon this worthy, 
stilted and hitherto rather obscure provincial 
pedant the Great Chance of English life ; 
to receive a note from the private secretary 
of the widow of Mr. Camp, of Chicago, and 
to speak before the Research Club, where, 
as it seems. Men are Made ! 


CHAPTER IX. 


In which the Green Overcoat begins to assert 
itself. 

“ And what,” say you (very properly), “ what 
of the Green Overcoat all this time ? After 
all, it is the title of the book, and I am entitled 
to hear more about the title. I did not get 
this book to hear all about a hotch-potch of 
human beings, I got it to read about the Green 
Overcoat. What of the Green Overcoat ? ” 

Softly ! I bear it in mind. 

The adventures of the Green Overcoat 
throughout those days, when it had taken 
vengeance upon the human beings who had 
separated it from its beloved master, may be 
simply told. 

The police in this country know from hour 
to hour what we do and how we do it ; if they 
were better educated, they would even be able 
to know why we do it. The travels of any 
object not honestly come by — if it remain at 
least in the hands of the poor — may be traced 
in good time (by the conscientious historian 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


who has access to Scotland Yard) as unerringly 
as a North Hants fox who, before entertaining 
the hunt, has been kept in a motor pit for three 
days. 

When Professor Higginson had charged 
the Man with the Broken Nose with the task 
of restoring the Green Overcoat to its owner, 
and had generously prepaid the proletarian 
for his services upon that occasion, I regret to 
say that the citizen entrusted with the 
fulfilment of such a duty most shamefully 
neglected it. 

He did indeed proceed a certain distance 
in the direction of Crampton Park under the 
open morning sun, whistling as he went, with 
the object of convincing his probably suspi- 
cious and certainly jealous comrades in the 
Shelter of his integrity. But when he had 
got to cover behind a row of cottages, the 
strange action to which he descended betrayed 
the baseness of his moral standard. 

He no longer continued in the direction 
of Crampton Park : not he ! He dodged at a 
brisk pace with the heavy thing upon his arm., 
zigzagging right and left through the streets 
of the slum-suburb, and soon left the houses 
for a deserted field which a blank wall hid from 
neighbouring windows, and to which I must 


176 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


suppose that he had upon various occasions 
betaken himself when he desired privacy in 
some adventure. 

Seated upon a rubbish heap which adorned 
that plot of ground, the Man with the Broken 
Nose first very carefully felt in either pocket 
of the bargain, and found nothing but a 
cheque book. 

He pulled it out and held it hesitatingly for 
a few moments in his stubby right hand. 

The Man with the Broken Nose was not 
without his superstitions — superstitions 
common, I fear, to his class — and one of 
these was Cheque Books. He knew indeed 
that with a Cheque Book great things could 
be done, but he knew not how. He had not 
possession of the magic password, or of the 
trick whereby this powerful instrument 
governs the modern world. He wondered for 
a moment a little thickly in his early morning 
mind whether a price were given for such 
things. For himself he regretfully concluded 
it was a mystery. He put it back. But even 
as he did so something in the heap of rubbish 
gave way, he slipped, and was suddenly 
acutely conscious of a warm wet feeling in 
his right calf ; it came from a broken bottle. 

His leg in the slipping of the rubble had 

177 

12 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


met the glass, and the glass had won ; nor 
did that great Green Overcoat, all sumptuously 
lined with fur, give a hint of its dread 
amusement. 

The blood was pouring severely from the 
wound. The Man with the Broken Nose had 
suffered accidents before ; he knew that this 
might be serious. He lifted his trouser leg, 
saw the bad gash, and for a moment gently 
pressed the lips of the wound together. 

“ It 's a jedgment ! ” he said. “ It ’s a 
jedgment ! ” he repeated to himself. 

But even so manifest a sign from On High 
would not deter him from his purpose. He 
tore from his shirt a strip wherewith to bind 
his leg, and limped with increasing pain back 
towards the streets of the town. 

He was seeking a house not unknown to 
him, for it was a place where those who have 
few friends can always find a friend, the 
residence of a Mr. Montague, Financier and 
Master of those mean streets ; and as he 
limped, carrying his booty upon his arm, he 
cursed. 

The morning sun brought him no gladness. 
The Green Overcoat seemed heavier and 
heavier with every yard of his way, until at 
last he stood before a house like any other of 


i- 


178 



THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


those unhappy little houses wherein our 
industrial cities rot, save that its glass was a 
little dirtier, its doorstep more neglected, its 
paint more faded than that of its neighbours. 

For a moment the Man with the Broken 
Nose hesitated. The day was extremely 
young. Mr. Montague might not care to be 
aroused. It was important for him and for 
many like him that he should keep 
Mr. Montague’s good will. Then he remem- 
bered that in a little time the Knocker-up 
would come his rounds, and that that 
wretched street of slaves would wake to work 
for the rich in the city. 

The thought decided him. He rapped 
gently with his knuckles on the ground floor 
window. There was no response. He rapped 
a second time. A terse but unpleasant oath 
assured him that he had aroused whoever 
slept therein. A minute or two later he heard 
shuffling slippers moving cautiously across the 
passage. The door was opened a crack, and a 
very short man, very old, hump-backed one 
would almost say, with a beard of prodigious 
growth and beastliness tucked into a dressing- 
gown more greasy than the beard, stood in the 
darkness behind the half-open door. 

“ I do ’umbly beg pardon,” began the Man 

i8o 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 

with the Broken Nose, making of the Green 
Overcoat a sort of shield and offering at once. 
“ I do ’umbly beg pardon, Mr. Montague, 
but I thought ” 

“ Curth what you thought ! ” said the 
bearer of that ancient crusading name, in a 
voice so husky it could hardly be heard. 
“ Curth what you thought ! Come in ! ” 

The Man with the Broken Nose slipped in 
with something of the carriage that a poor 
trapper might show who should take refuge 
from a bear in the lair of a snake. 

“ I ’umbly beg pardon,” he began again in 
the darkness of the passage, and the old 
bearded apparition with the crusading name 
answered — 

“ Shut your mouth ! ” 

The Man with the Broken Nose obeyed. 
The cautious, shuffling slippers led the way. 
A match was struck. The little dangerous 
figure reached up on tip-toe and lit a flaring 
unprotected gas-jet. The only window giving 
upon that passage was boarded. 

“ Take it inter the light, Mr. Montague, 
take it inter the light ! ” said the visitor 
eagerly, making as though to open the door 
of a further room which would be flooded 
with the morning sun. 

i8i 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


His hand was upon the latch. With a 
curious, hardly audible snarl, Mr. Montague 
caught ' that hand a sharp blow on the 
wrist, and it said much for Mr. Montague’s 
high standing with the Ormeston poor 
that the Man with the Broken Nose took 
no offence. 

Under the flaring gas-jet Mr. Montague was 
turning the Green Overcoat over and over 
again. 

“ Give yer a quid,” he said after about 
three minutes of close inspection. 

“ Why, Mr. Montague, sir ! ” the other had 
just begun, when he heard a hiss which formed 
the words, “ Wish you may die ! ” and felt 
upon his shoulder the grip that was not like 
the grip of a human hand, but like the grip 
of a talon. 

The Man with the Broken Nose was not 
prepared to argue. There had been one or 
two things in his full and varied life which if 
Mr. Montague had mentioned them even in 
a whisper would have made him less inclined 
to argue still, and he knew that Mr. Montague 
had a way of whispering sometimes into the 
ear of Memory things which a better breeding 
would have respected. 

Mr. Montague knew the value of time. 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


Far up the line of streets the first strokes 
of the Knocker-up were heard. 

The Man with the Broken Nose found him- 
self a moment later standing in the street 
with one sovereign in his hand for a twenty- 
guinea garment, and looking at the shut door 
and the meaningless, dirty windows which 
contained his prize. 

He wished the new owner joy in Hell, 
he wished it aloud with that amazing bitter- 
ness which the poor of our great cities distil 
more copiously than any men on earth : for 
of all men upon all the earth they are the most 
miserable. 

He took out the sovereign he had just 
received, and his mood changed. He spat 
on it for luck. He felt himself going curiously 
lightly, and then he remembered of what 
a burden he was rid. He walked without 
difficulty, and only in a hundred yards or two 
did he remember his wound. It seemed to 
have healed quickly. It had not opened. 
He almost felt as though it were healing — 
and now I am concerned with him no more. 
The Green Overcoat is out of his keeping, 
and has no intention of returning to it. 

But in the filthy little room of that filthy 
little house the filthy little bearer of the old 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


crusading name, Mr. Montague, sat l uddled 
upon his bed — a bed he made himself, or 
rather left unmade from week to week — and 
examined carefully upon his knee the fur, 
the cloth, the make of the gorgeous apparel. 

He smiled, and as he smiled he sneered. 
For God had so made Mr. Montague that 
sneering and smiling were with him one 
thing. 

There was value in that piece of cloth upon 
his knee, but it was of two kinds : value to 
anyone who would buy, more value, perhaps, 
to some owner that would recover. He 
considered either chance, and even as he 
considered them and sat staring at the expanse 
of Green Cloth an odd thing happened ; not 
in the external world, nor within the walls 
of that room, but within the old man’s mind. 
He thought suddenly of Death ! 

A tremor passed over the whole surface of 
his skin, downwards from his neck to his 
feet. He coughed and spat — clear of the 
Green Overcoat — upon the floor ; and he 
cursed for a moment in a language that was 
not English. Then the thought passed as 
suddenly as it had come, and he was himself 
again, but the weaker for that moment. His 
hand trembled as he set it to do what every 


184 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


hand appeared so prone to do when the 
Green Overcoat came near it. He put that 
trembling hand into the left-hand pocket and 
found nothing. He had expected as much. 
Was it likely that his visitor would have left 
anything ? For form’s sake he put it into 
the right hand pocket in turn ; and thence, 
to his amazement, he drew out the Cheque 
Book ! 

He looked at it stupidly for a moment, not 
understanding how such a prize should con- 
ceivably have been abandoned! Then he 
smiled again that! not cheerful smile, and 
slowly consulted the name of the bank and of 
the owner, and the counterfoils one by one. 

The sums that stood therein called to him 
like great heralds ; they made his puny old 
chest heave and certain muscles in him grow 
rigid. 

He was in the midst of the tale when his 
whole being fainted within him, as it were — 
stopped dead at the noise of a violent rain 
of blows upon his outer door. 


CHAPTER X. 


In which a Descendant of the Crusaders refuses 
to harbour stolen goods. 

For just that time — how long it is or how 
short no man who has felt it can tell — for just 
that time it takes the body to recover itself 
from a halt of the blood, the old man sat 
immovable, his eyes unnaturally bright and 
unwinking like a bird’s. 

Then motion returned to him, and it was a 
motion as rapid as a lizard’s. 

His greasy old dressing-gown was off. The 
ample, the substantial, the English Green 
Overcoat was on that miserable, shrivelled 
form of the old man with the crusading name. 
His sticks of arms were struggling wildly into 
the massive sleeves, when that thundering at 
the door came again, and with it a loud, 
peremptory order in a voice which he knew. 

Mr. Montague coaxed on, with quite other 
gestures, over the overcoat and like a skin, 
that vast, greasy dressing-gown wherein for 
so many years he had shuffled across the 


186 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT 


lonely floors of his four-room house. He was 
in the passage, and was trying to shout, 
torcing his voice huskily — 

“ You 11 break the door ! You 11 break 
the door ! ” 

He opened it. Two men were outside 
whom he knew. Each was burly and strong. 
Each carried upon a well-fed body a large, 
sufficient, beefy face. Each had the bearing 
of a trained, drilled man. The one who stood 
somewhat forward as the superior had some- 
thing approaching to kindness in his intelligent 
eyes, and both had the eyes of brave men — 
though not of loyal ones. 

“ Well, Sammy ? ” said the one in 
command. 

“ Oh, Mr. Ferguson ! Mr. Ferguson ! ” 
came in Mr. Montague’s half-voice. 

“ Well, Sammy,” said Mr. Ferguson again, 
” you nearly lost some of your paint that 
time ! You weren’t asleep, Sam,” he said, 

winking ; “ you ’s never are ! I believe 

you sleep dinner-time, like the owls.” 

The inferior of the two visitors grinned as 
in duty bound at the excellent joke. Mr. 
Montague smiled with the smile of an aged 
idol. 

“ Mr. Ferguson ! Mr. Ferguson ! ” he 


187 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


rasped in that half- voice of his, “ yer will 
have yer fun ! ” 

He led the two big men in. It was curious 
to note how these Englishmen of the Midlands 
showed a sort of deference in their gesture, 
an old inherited thing, as they entered 
another man’s house. The lesser of them 
made to wipe his boots, but there was no mat. 
Mr. Montague sniffed and smiled or sneered, 
or sneered and smiled. 

“ Mister,” he said to the second of the two, 
“ I don’t know yer name ? ” 

He did not say this in a very pleasant way. 

“ Never mind, Samuel,” said Mr. Ferguson 
heartily, “ he ’s only just joined the force. 
You ’ll know him soon enough.” And he 
laughed out loud in a manner very different 
from Mr. Montague’s. 

“ And now then, Samuel,” he added, “ we 
haven’t much time to lose.” 

He pulled himself up (he had been a soldier) 
and he led the way mechanically to the second 
little ground-floor room at the back, which he 
had visited often and often before in his 
capacity of that member of the Ormeston 
police who best knew and could best deal 
with receivers. Mr. Ferguson was, you see, 
the providence of these financiers, managing 


i88 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


them, saving them — punishing them reluc- 
tantly when it was absolutely necessary, but 
generally keeping them (as a matter of policy) 
upon a string, and through them controlling 
his knowledge of all the avenues by which the 
more adventurous of the poor played Tom 
Tiddler’s ground upon the frills of the pro- 
pertied classes. 

Mr. Montague shuffled as he had shuffled 
so often before, he shuffled cautiously after 
the burly man. As he shuffled he protested 
for the mere sake of ritual, and chuckled the 
while a little to himself as though he were 
thinking aloud — 

“ Me ! Me of all men ! S'help ! ” 

Mr. Ferguson went in. There was not 
much in the place. Five or six articles of 
furniture recently sold at an auction, which 
the policeman recognised as being legally 
acquired ; an exceedingly dirty oil-picture 
in an even dirtier frame, which his innocent 
eyes thought might be an old master. He 
kicked it with his foot. 

“ What 's that ? ” he said. 

Mr. Montague was alarmed. 

“ Don’t yer kick that with your foot now ; 
come, don’t yer ! ” he whispered through his 
defective throat imploringly. “ Don’t yer 


189 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


there ! Tt ’s right as Rechts. May I die ! 
’Tis surely.” 

He looked up anxiously, and put a pro- 
tecting hand upon it. 

The policeman moved it roughly forward 
and saw a label upon the back. He remem- 
bered the sale and let it go again. 

“ Yes,” he said, “ that 's all right, Samuel.” 

A dusty book, the binding half torn off of it, 
lay upon a shelf, worthless if anything was. 
Mr. Ferguson took it up mechanically, hardly 
knowing what he was at ; but as he did so 
he heard an almost imperceptible sound 
coming from the old receiver’s mouth, a sort 
of gasp. It was a sound that betrayed 
anxiety, and it warned him. He picked up 
that book and opened it. It was a copy of 
Halidon’s History of Ormeston. He turned 
the leaves mechanically, and was banging it 
down again, when there appeared a thing 
unusual in the leaves of such a book — a corner 
of much whiter paper, crinkly and crisp, 
unmistakable. Mr. Ferguson pulled out a 
five-pound note. 

“ Wish I may ” began the husky old 

voice almost inaudibly, and then ceased. 

Mr. Ferguson turned round and winked 
enormously. 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“ Contrariwise, Sammy ! Wish you mayn’t ! 
Long life to you,” he said. 

He turned again to the book, carefully 
turned its leaves, picked out one by one ten 
five-pound notes, shook it roughly upside 
down, and concluded there were no more. 

“ Artful ! ” he said admiringly. ; 

Mr. Montague knew all the ropes. 

“ I can tell yer, bright ! ” he whispered 
eagerly. 

“ Ah, I know you would ! ” said the big 
Midlander with a good-humoured laugh. “ Not 
flash goods are they ? ” 

“No, Mr. Ferguson, no,” came the whisper 
again, pathetically eager, “ nor my own 
savings neither. I won’t lie to yer, Mr. 
Ferguson, sir ! I won’t ! Bright ! I did it 
t’ oblige a widder ! ” 

“ I understand,” said Mr. Ferguson 
genially, putting a reassuring hand upon Mr. 
Montague’s shoulder. “ Bless you ! We 
wouldn’t lose you, Sam, not for di’monds, we 
wouldn’t ! But we ’re bound to go the bank, 
you know,” he added in his duty tone, “ and 
we ’re bound to prosecute if we find who did 
the pinching ! ” 

Mr. Montague was reassured. 

“ I am a sort of banker, Mr. Ferguson,” he 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


whispered sadly. “ I did truly do it t’ 
oblige.” 

“ We know, Samm}^” said the big man, 
winking again ponderously, “ that 's a by- 
blow ! That 's a come-by-chance ! You 
shan’t suffer for it, only if we find that widow 

Mr. Montague was reassured and smiled 
that smile, and the inferior policeman grinned 
also an honest grin. He was there to learn 
the tricks of the! trade, and he only half 
understood them. 

“ Look here, Samuel,” said the big man, 
turning round suddenly and squarely, “ we ’re 
not after that, you know ! We ’re not 
after a general rummage either this time.” 
(He carefully folded, tied up and pocketed 
the bank-notes as he spoke, taking their 
numbers one by one with a pencil upon his 
pocket-book.) “ We ’re after something 
pertickler. Now you ’ll knowdf anyone does, 
and no harm ’ll come to you, Samuel, so 
think ! Ye ’ve heard o’ Mr. Brassington ? ” 

Mr. Montague was about to shake his head, 
when he suddenly remembered that everyone 
in Ormeston knew Mr. Brassington and instead 
of shaking his head he nodded it— abstractedly. 
All his narrow, keen mind was full of the name 


19a 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


Brassington, which he had seen written so 
bold and large upon the cover of the rich 
cheque-book that warmed with a heavenly 
glow a certain pocket just beneath his dressing 
gown upon the right-hand side. 

Mr. Ferguson said no more, but led the way 
back ponderously into the dirty little bed- 
room. He sat down upon the only rickety 
chair, his inferior standing, almost at atten- 
tion, feeling there was something solemn 
about the moment. Mr. Montague sat upon 
the dirty little huddled bed, and watched the 
two Englishmen with weary unconcern. 

“ Samuel,” said Mr. Ferguson in a new and 
graver tone, “ you know all the lays and the 
lags about here, don’t you ? ” 

Mr. Montague did not reply ; he tried to 
begin to smile, but stopped the smile with a 
cough. 

“ Well, now, there ’s a Green Overcoat of 
Mr. Brassington’s. Maybe you know it. 
Most do. He 's alius in it.” 

Mr. Montague shook his head in some 
despair, and continued to listen. 

“ Anyhow, it ’s not here,” continued Mr. 
Ferguson. “ You wouldn’t fake it, Sammy ; 
it 's not worth it, otherwise we ’d have looked 
upstairs,” he added knowingly. 


13 


193 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


Mr. Montague smiled in reply, a genuine 
smile. The policemen knew when to go up- 
stairs and when not. 

“ It ’s not worth twenty quid,” went on 
Mr. Ferguson earnestly, “ if you should see 
it. It ’s not worth ” (he sought in his mind 
for a comparison) “ blarst me ! it ’s not 
worth six months,” he concluded with 
emphasis. 

Mr. Montague accompanied this speech by 
a continued slow shaking of the head and an 
inverted vague look in his little bright eyes, 
as though he were seeking for some memory 
of the thing — some glimpse of it within his 
wide circle of acquaintances. 

“ It ’s not here,” said Mr. Ferguson for the 
last time, rising, “ I can see that, and I know 
ye, but if ye should see anything of it ” 

The old man’s whisper was close to the 
policeman’s ear, for he also had risen. It 
came reassuring and husky. 

“ I know which ways I lies abed ! ” he 
said. Then he winked, sharply, like a bird, 
and Mr. Ferguson was thoroughly content. 

One last piece of ritual had to be gone 
through before this cog in our vast and 
admirable administrative system had ground 
through and done its work. The little old 


194 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


bearded man shuffled to a corner and brought 
out a bottle and three glasses. He poured 
out generously into theirs, slightly into his, 
and they all three — the two Englishmen and 
the Crusader — drank together. 

Mr. Montague had seen the inside of a prison 
once— it was thirty years before, and for a 
few weeks only. He was new to this country 
then. Mr. Ferguson knew that Mr. Montague 
cherished no passionate desire to see those 
sights again, and the big policeman went out 
into the morning sun and walked off with his 
subordinate down the street. They walked 
in those absurd twin suits of dittoes and 
regulation boots, which, when the Police go 
out in civilian disguise, shriek “ The Force ! 
The Force ! ” to all the poor before whom 
the vision passes. 

4 : « « 

Mr. Montague from within his little room 
peered through the curtains. 

His face was no longer the same. It was 
the face of a man younger and yet more 
evil. 

He slipped off his greasy lizard-skin of a 
dressing-gown as though he were preparing 
deliberately for some evil deed. He tore and 
struggled himself out of that maleficent 


195 



The two Englishmen and the Crusader 
drank together. 



THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


green, fur-lined cloth ; he spat on it ; then 
he rubbed clean the place where he had spat, 
and cursed it lengthily and with a nasty 
voice in a language that is not ours. Now 
and then his talons of hands made as though 
to tear the fabric. He snarled at it and 
clawed at it twice — but he would not damage 
it ; it would fetch twenty pounds. 

He sat, a skeleton effigy with his too-large, 
bearded head, draped only in the aged night- 
shirt of his solitude, and, by I know not what 
disastrous processes of the mind, now shrank 
from, now turned towards the pieces of green 
cloth lying squat on the bed as though it had 
been a living thing. Then he began muttering 
about his ten five-pound notes. He gave 
them names, turning them into strange 
foreign money. There was more in the bank. 
Oh, there was more ! But all the days he 
had kept them hidden — waiting for the thing 
to blow over ! And how cheap he had bought 
that paper, and how well he thought to have 
hidden it ; what a certain scheme against 
curious eyes ! Those five flimsy papers 
between the leaves of such a book, and all 
those regular visits of the Force, regular as 
the month came round, and never such a 
thing as a loss before 1 


197 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


In his old head, so clear, so narrow and so 
keen, there ran in spite of reason the craft 
of dead centuries and tales of demons 
inhabiting human things. He had not eaten. 
He had been awakened too early from sleep. 
He had suffered agony and loss. It was the 
fault of the Green Overcoat ! of the accursed 
thing before him ! But that thing was worth 
twenty pounds. 

For a moment he fingered (and felt sacri- 
legious as he did so) the right-hand pocket. 
He touched within it the cheque book. There 
arose in him almost simultaneously a vision 
of what one could do with the cheque book 
of a really wealthy man, a man with a large 
balance for his private whims, a man known 
to be generously careless ; and as he had that 
vision there came with it another vision — 
the vision of the inside of a British prison, 
the nearest thing to Hell which God permits 
on earth 

It was the second vision that conquered. 
The old man drew his fingers from that cheque 
book as a man in cold weather draws his 
fingers reluctantly from the fire. 

Then, with sudden haste, and muttering all 
the while those curious curses in a tongue 
which is not ours, he folded the thing together, 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


drew from beneath the ramshackle bed (where 
there was a great store of it) a large sheet of 
dirty and thick paper, and one of many 
lengths of string that there lay rolled. 

Pie made a bundle of the Green Overcoat, 
hurriedly, misshapenly. He drew on a pair 
of trousers, covered his upper body with a 
great ulster, most unsuitable to the season, 
groped for a round hat that had done ten 
years’ service ; pulled on his thin, pointed, 
elastic-sided boots, and shuffled out into the 
sun carrying his parcel under his arm. He 
was not free from Hell until he was free of it. 
But it would fetch twenty pounds ! 

As the old man shuffled down the street 
eyes watched him from window after window. 
He was to the broken poor of Ormeston what 
certain financial houses are to The Masters of 
Europe. They feared, they hated, they 
obeyed him ; and while he shuffled on few 
men whom he met would fail, if he met them 
alone, to do his bidding. 

Mr. Montague’s God sent him a man stand- 
ing alone, or rather lounging alone, a man 
reclining against the corner wall of a house 
called, I regret to say, “ The Pork Pie,” and 
already doomed in the eyes of the unflinching 
magistrates of Ormeston : doomed at a 




THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


price to one of their own members who was 
the proprietor thereof : a price to be paid in 
public gold. 

The transaction between the receiver and 
the lounger was not long in doing. Mr. 
Montague approached the lounger with that 
unmistakable air of a master, which you will 
also note when, in another world, a financier 
approaches a politician. With that unmis- 
takable air of the servant which, in another 
world, you will note when the politician 
receives the financier, did the lounger receive 
Mr. Montague. 

The lounger did not stiffen or straighten 
himself to express his inferiority to the old 
man. There was nothing military in their 
relations. But he contrived as he lounged to 
look more abject, more crapulous than ever. 
And as the aged receiver with a few hoarse 
words in his low tones handed the parcel 
over, the lounger took it. He was pleased 
to hear Mr. Montague’s command, though it 
had been given with a filthy oath, that he 
might sell where he would the contents of that 
paper, but Mr. Montague (who knew what 
happened to every man) demanded half the 
proceeds, and so left him. When these words 
had passed the old man shuffled off, and the 


200 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


lounger thought of him no more, save as a 
dread master, whom he would certainly serve, 
to whom he would most certainly pay his due, 
and also as a benefactor in a way. 

But when he had rid himself of the violent 
and dreadful thing, and given his order and 
claimed his due, what Mr. Montague did was 
this. He boarded a tram in a neighbouring 
parallel street. He paid his halfpenny, and 
went right to the Lydgate, an old quarter of 
the town, now full of slums, wherein dwelt a 
certain Pole of the name of Lipsky. 

He had taken the most rapid means he 
could, but even so he glanced nervously over 
his shoulder lest a lounger with a parcel 
should be following. 

What Lipsky, a Pole, with his distant 
strange name, might mean to a man bearing 
that old crusading, western name of Montague 
no one has ever known. 

Some say he was a son, which was surely 
impossible ; some a cousin, which is unlikely ; 
for do the Montagues wed the Lipskys ? 

The tram passed by the door of that little 
clothes shop — a whole front of slops with 
huge white ticket-prices on them — and above 
the word “Lipsky” in large letters of gold 
on brown. Mr. Montague shuffled off the 


201 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


tram and shuffled to the door of that place 
of business. 

He found Mr. Lipsky alone at the counter 
within. 

Mr. Montague had not a moment to spare, 
and in that moment he had passed the word 
about the Green Overcoat. 

Mr. Lipsky was incredulous. There was 
no one else in the little slop-shop. The elder 
man leant over the counter and whispered in 
his ear. And the word that he whispered was 
not an English word. The younger man took 
on a different colour. It was like cheese 
changing to chalk. 

“ Vah ! ” said the Pole. “ Not keep it ? Vy 
not ? Keep it, sell it — that ’s business ! Keep 
it as long as should be and sell it at best price. 
Not keep it ? Thems superstition ! ” 

Mr. Montague said no more. He had done his 
duty. Whatever the Pole might suffer — if — 
by chance — that Green Overcoat should come 
his way, his conscience was clear. The office 
which Crusaders owe to Poles was fulfilled. 
He had not despoiled his brethren. 

He was off, was Mr. Montague, shuffling 
out of the little shop hurriedly across the 
tramway line of the Lydgate, and back by 
devious and narrow ways to his mean house. 


203 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


An odd relief filled him as he walked, and an 
odd lightness as he entered. He had got rid 
of an accursed thing. And it so happened 
that when he reached that filthy little room 
of his, as sleep was overpowering him, he knelt 
and prayed to a God of the Hills, a strange 
and vengeful but triumphant God, who had 
saved his servant Montague. 


203 


CHAPTER XI. 


In which a Pole is less scrupulous. 

The name of the lounger was James. That 
was his Christian name. What his family 
name might be it is impossible to discover at 
this distance of time, for he had been born 
in 1868, brought up in the workhouse, ap- 
prenticed to a ropemaker, passed various 
terms in jail under various aliases, gone to 
sea, naturalised as an American citizen, 
returned to England as valet in the service of 
a tourist, been dismissed a few years before 
for theft, and was at this moment a member 
of the New Bureaucracy, to wit, a Watcher and 
Checker under the Ormeston Labour Exchange. 
He was paid (by results, 2s. 6d. for each con- 
viction) to see that the poor did not cheat the 
higher officials of that invaluable Public office, 
to worm out the true history of applicants at 
the Exchange and to provide secret evidence 
against them, that they might be imprisoned 
and black-listed if they concealed their past 


204 


THE GREEN 0\'ERC0AT. 


from the Secretary — a Valued Servant of the 
State. 

James, then, wandered out into God’s great 
world upon that happy morning with a bundle 
under his arm. Two conflicting thoughts 
disturbed him. First, where he might sell 
the content at the highest price, and, 
secondly, where he might sell it with the 
greatest security. Such divergent issues 
disturb the great men of our time as well as 
wandering men bearing alien coats ; they are 
at the root of modern affairs. 

The more he thought of it the more did 
James determine by the feel that the bundle 
was clothes ; why, then, his market was a shop 
in the Lydgate, an old quarter of the town, 
now full of slums, wherein dwelt a certain 
Pole of the name of Lipsky. This man, by 
common repute, was well with the police, and 
in our English towns that, with the poor, is 
everything. Lippy would not give him full 
value, but he could give him full security. He 
would give him perhaps but a quarter of the 
value, but he would at least give him a free 
run with the money and no awkward questions 
for the men in blue. 

Such an advantage is it to have assured the 
police of one’s integrity. 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


Nevertheless, he thought it of advantage 
to discover of what value the bundle might be. 
Even if he was to get but a quarter of its value 
from the Pole, he would like to know what it 
was that he was to get a quarter of. 

He lollopped lazily down the street. His 
time was his own. He peered through a 
neglected doorway into an empty yard, 
stepped into it, behind the screen of a hoard- 
ing, looking first up and down to see whether 
any of the tyrants were about. Seeing no 
helmet and therefore no tyrant, he untied the 
parcel and pulled out the coat within. He 
was agreeably surprised. He had expected 
slops, but this was not slops. He was no 
valuer, but he would imperil for ever the true 
end of man’s soul and suffer the companionship 
of demons for eternity (such were the rash 
hazards he took) if it were not two quid, and 
played properly it might be three. 

Wait a moment, there might be something 
in the pockets. He felt in the left-hand 
pocket — nothing ; in the right-hand pocket, 
there nothing but that solid, oblong cheque 
book with four cheques torn out. At first he 
thought of throwing it away, for it identified 
the owner of the garment. Then he remem- 
bered things called “ clues,” and threw far 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


from him the very idea instead of the cheque 
book. He tried to decipher the name, but 
could not. James could read and write when 
he had left school, but that was a long time 
ago. He had done more useful work since 
then. 

Next he remembered the suspicious haste 
of Mr. Montague. He began to wonder 
whether the bundle was quite safe. He 
determined to hurry; and as for the price, 
why, he would take what he could get. 

He fastened up the parcel again, and in a 
sobriety of mind which was new to him and 
not altogether pleasant, he took the road to 
the Lydgate. Mr. Montague might have 
spared his fears. The day was early, James 
had as yet no pence, he could not board a 
tram. But somehow or other the bundle was 
unnaturally clumsy or unnaturally heavy. 

He felt a distaste for it. The distaste 
enlarged, something had gone wrong. As he 
went down that morning street alone, reso- 
lutely trudging, he heard within him the echoes 
of a voice he did not wish to hear. It was 
the voice of a woman, not sober, but holding 
to him. He thought he could not have 
remembered such a thing after ten years, and 
of a summer morning. It is odd that even 


207 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


the poor should mislike such memories ; 
James misliked them abominably. Perhaps 
he was more sensitive for the moment than 
are most of the poor. . . . 

Yes ! How she did drink, damn her. . . . 
Why the Hell was he thinking of such things ? 
And how clear her voice was. . . . Then 

he saw the name “ Lipsky ” over the way. 
He was at the Lydgate already. Could a 
man be drunk in the flush of morning and 
without liquor ? Nay, drink dulled such 
things, and he had heard that voice awfully 
clear within him. 

He trudged into the shop, shaking his mind 
free, and thinking of the sovereign — or two 
sovereigns at least. 

The gentleman in charge — there was but 
one — exchanged mutual recognitions with 
James. The one was a Pole and the other an 
Englishman ; but both were human, and 
therefore brethren. Then James untied the 
parcel. But when James had untied the 
parcel it was apparent that though both were 
human, Lipsky was a Pole and not a man of 
the Midlands, for he thrust it from him with 
his palms outward, sliding his wrists upon the 
counter, and moving his fingers like Small 
snakes in the air. Lippy was not taking any. 


3o8 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT 


James looked at him, and did not under- 
stand. 

“ I got it straight, I did ! ” he said. 

Lippy didn’t want to look at it. 

“ I don’t want it, there ! ” burst out James 
(he could not for his life have told you why), 
and Lippy, leaning over familiarly but 
insolently, told him (in Polish English) that 
if he tried to sell it he would not long be a free 
man. James thought this treason, and in his 
heart he was determined on revenge. What 
had he done to Lippy to receive such a threat ? 
The whole air about these men as they met, 
and as this lump of cloth lay between them, 
was unreal and fantastic. Each felt it, each 
in his utterly different mind. For such 
things, if you will excuse me, happen to the 
poor also, as we all know they do to the rich, 
whether through drink or what-not I can’t 
tell, whether for drink or what-not it is for 
them to determine. There was fate, and there 
was compulsion, and there was the profound 
ill-ease of the soul hovering over that dirty 
counter in the slums as they hover over the 
tables of politicians when similar bargains are 
toward in a larger world. James tied his 
bundle up again and went out without a 
word. 


14 


209 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


One beefy part of him suggested that the 
coppers were too close on the trail and that 
Lippy knew it ; but another part of him, 
more permanent, more real, deeper, smelt 
the truth. He himself had suffered dread ; 
he felt vaguely that Lippy knew the cause of 
that dread, and that for both of them there 
was something strange about the Thing. 
The Soul was in trouble. 

Oh ! James knew it very well. The big 
bundle under his left arm so weighed upon 
that primal part of us, which is within, that 
all the things least desired and most carefully 
forgotten of his life returned again under its 
influence and maddened him. With the 
simplicity of his class, he thought the evil to 
be attached to the fact that the coat was 
stolen. Unlike his betters, he had never 
dreamt that stealing was right. He had 
always known that it was wrong. ... He 
had a mind to put the Green Overcoat down 
in the thoroughfare and leave it there. 
In spite of the risk, he would have done so in 
another moment had he not heard shuffling 
footsteps coming up rapidly behind him and 
felt a soft Polish hand upon his shoulder. It 
was Lippy. 

The Poles when they enter the Second Hand 


210 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


1 Clothes Trade prove themselves commercial. 

I Their ancient chivalry seems to desert them 
in this line of business, and something material 
creeps into their gallant hearts. Lippy had 
' reproached himself, Lippy had been tortured 
as he had seen the lounger’s figure slowly and 
I doubtfully receding burdened with a thing of 
so much value. 

With the disappearance of the Green Over- 
coat the supernatural warnings (for which he 
despised himself) had disappeared, and he 
remembered only its very mundane value. 
He could not bear the loss, and he had 
followed. 

The lounger James turned round startled, 
and instinctively thrust the bundle towards 
the man who, he instinctively knew, had 
repented of his first decision. Lippy seized 
: it, guiltily, furtively, violently, and without 
a word he was on his way back to his shop, 
i But as for James, he went his way noting 
i suddenly the pleasantness of the morning ; 
1 that excellent Watcher and Checker under the 
L Labour Exchange of Ormeston, that Pillar of 
‘ Free Labour, that Good Servant of the State, 
I that member of our New Bureaucracy of 
Social Reform, was himself again. He went 
; forward whistling, and he found it in a few 


an 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


moments quite easy to forget the Thing and 
all the memories that had cropped up with 
the Thing. He had passed it on, and Lippy 
was holding the baby. 

In the few steps to his shop the Pole had 
no time to repent, though his mind was ill at 
ease. Mr. Montague was a strange man. He 
had strange wisdom. He could read strange 
books. And if Mr. Montague had come to 
warn him, well . . . 

Lippy dismissed the superstitious fear. He 
opened the bundle, he gazed on the Sacred 
Green Thing, he felt the pockets (of course), 
he saw the cheque book and the wealthy 
name. He shuddered — but he gloried. Then 
he fastened the whole up again, put the bundle 
into a great drawer under his counter, sighed 
a mechanical sigh of mechanical relief, and 
began to busy himself with the arranging and 
ticketing of his goods for the day. 

But as that day wore on the Pole was not 
himself. He was too nervous, too snappy 
with customers, too much affected by slight 
sounds when the evening came, and all that 
night he lay but dozing, waking continually 
in starts from disordered dreams of un- 
accountable vengeance. 

The next day, the Friday, Lippy was very 


212 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


ill. No movement of conscience disturbed 
j him, he had not wronged his own ; yet in 
his fever he suffered dreadfully from some 
i unreasoning sense of evil. 

The old woman who chared for him was for 
i calling a doctor. All Monday Lippy, weak- 
I ening in his sick-bed, fought against the 
expense. As it was, he had been compelled 
to pay a doubtful boy — a non-Pole, and there- 
fore ill suited to commerce — to mind the shop, 
and twice he left his bed, at the risk of his 
life, and tottered down to see that no harm 
was coming to his business. On each occasion 
as he neared that counter with its drawer and 
its secreted bundle a more violent trouble 
had returned, and he had had to be helped 
up dazed and trembling to his wretched bed 
and room above. 

So Monday passed, and what happened on 
, the Tuesday and why, a return to others 
[ who had meddled with the Green Overcoat 
f will explain : Why on the morning of Tuesday 
i Lippy woke refreshed in body, but very 
I weak ; why he had an odd feeling that things 
I were mending, how he could not tell ; why 
it was that in the early afternoon of that day 
he heard in the shop below a voice addressing 
his assistant in an accent very unusual to 


213 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


such shops ; why Lippy listened carefully 
at the door and thought he knew the voice. 

The voice you will find, Readerkin, was 
that of Mr. Kirby, and Mr. Kirby was asking 
in the most direct fashion possible for the 
coat, for the Green Overcoat ; he made no 
bones about it, he put it square. Very 
hurriedly did Lippy dress, and very hurriedly, 
weak as he was, did he totter down the stairs 
that Tuesday Morning. 


214 


CHAPTER XII. 

In which the Readerkin will, if he has an ounce 
of brains, begin to catch the inevitable Denoumong 
of the Imbroglio. 

Monday is the first working day of the week ; 
and upon Monday — at least on some Mondays 
— Mr. Kirby actually went to his office. 

Mr. Kirby so far loved duty or routine 
or respected the tradition of centuries — or 
anything else you like — as to visit his office 
upon some Mondays at sometime or other in 
the forenoon. It was a superstition with 
which he could not break, sensible as he would 
have been to have broken with it. His 
ample and increasing income proceeded mainly 
from investment ; he was utterly devoid of 
avarice ; he had neither family nor heirs. 
He was delighted that his junior partners 
should do the work, and they were welcome 
to the financial result of it. But still, the 
firm was Kirby and Blake, and his name was 
Kirby, and I think he had an inward feeling, 
unexpressed, that he stood a little better with 


215 


The green overcoat. 


his fellow-citizens of Ormeston, and with his 
very numerous friends, if he kept up the 
appearance of visiting the place — on some 
Mondays. 

Anyhow, visit it he did — usually as long 
after eleven as he dared ; and leave it he did 
— usually as long before one as his conscience 
would let him. Invariably did he say that 
he would return in the afternoon, and almost 
invariably did he fail to do so, save perhaps 
to look in vacantly, ask a few irrelevant 
questions, glance at his watch, say that he 
was late for some appointment — and go out 
again. 

There were, indeed, occasions when the 
familiar advice upon which the chief of his 
acquaintances depended necessitated a formal 
interview at the office : commonly he preferred 
to conduct such things in their private houses 
or his own. Fortune favoured him in this 
much, that the very short time he spent at 
his place of business was not usually pro- 
ductive of anxiety or even of a client whom he 
personally must see. But upon this Monday, 
as it so happened, his luck failed him. 

It was a quarter to twelve when he came 
briskly in wearing that good-humoured and 
rather secret smile, nodded to the clerks, 


216 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 

passed into his own room, and proceeded to 
do his duty as a solicitor by reaching for the 
telephone, with the object of reserving a table 
for lunch at the club. As he was in the midst 
of this professional occupation, a clerk, to his 
intense annoyance, begged him to receive 
as a matter of urgency a Mr. Postlethwaite. 
The name was familiar to Mr. Kirby, and he 
groaned in spirit. 

“ Oh, Mr. Blake can see him ! ” he said 
impatiently. “ No, he can’t ; no, I remember, 
he can’t.” 

He scratched his chin and managed to frown 
at the forehead without relaxing that small 
perpetual smile. 

“ Send him in here,” he sighed ; “ and look 
here, Thurston, has he got anything with 
him ? ” 

“Not that I could see. Sir,” answered the 
clerk respectfully. 

“ Oh, I don’t mean a dog or a sister-in-law,” 
replied Mr. Kirby without dignity and some- 
what impatiently. “ I mean a damned great 
roll of paper.” 

“ Well, sir,” said Thurstcn the clerk with 
continued respect, “ he certainly carried 
something of that sort in his hand.” 

“ Show him in, Thurston, show him in,” 


217 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


said Mr. Kirby louder than ever, and leaning 
back in his chair. . . . 

He knew thisj old Postlethwaite of old, 
a man of grievances, a man whom it was 
the lawyer’s business to dissuade from law ; 
a man whom he couldn’t quite call mad, 
but a man whom Mr. Kirby certainly did 
not trust with any member of the firm ; 
a man with whose considerable business in 
scattered freeholds (quite twenty of them up 
and down the suburbs of Ormeston, and nearly 
all of them unfortunate investments) Kirby 
in a moment of generosity or folly — perhaps 
rather of freakishness — had undertaken for his 
firm to let and sell and value, and now he 
wished he hadn’t ! 

For as Mr. Postlethwaite grew older, he 
grew more frightening, and he was a man now 
nearly seventy years of age. But his years 
had in no way diminished his almost epileptic 
vigour. Mr. Kirby could hear the terrible 
tramp of his great boots and the exclamations 
of his great voice in the corridor. The door 
opened, and he came in. He stood tall and 
menacing in the entry, and slammed the door 
behind him. His abundant white hair 
tumbled in great shocks over his head, his 
ill-kept beard bristled upon all sides from his 


218 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT 


face, and his eyes, which were reddish in 
colour (horrible thought !), glared like coals. 
His greeting was not friendly, but it was at 
least direct. 

“You got me into t^is, Kirby,” he shouted 
by way of good morning, “ and you 've got 
to get me out ! ” 

If Mr. Kirby disliked business, he certainly 
loved an adventure. His permanent smile 
grew more hvely. His sinewy neck seemed to 
shorten, he thrust his determined chin a trifle 
forward, and said with a wave of his hand — 

“ Pray sit down, Mr. Postlethwaite, I 
am entirely at your service.” 

“ I ’ll not sit down,” roared the redoubtable 
Postlethwaite. “You got me into this, and 
you ’ve got to get me out ! ” 

“ And of which,” said Mr. Kirby, in a tone 
of intelligent politeness, “ of which of your 
tomfooleries may you be speaking ? ” 

Mr. Postlethw’aite, like most of his kind, 
was rather relieved by insults than fired by 
them. 

“ I ’ll show 3mu,” he said fiercely, but in 
a more business-like tone than before. 
“ You ’ll see ! . . . And when you ’ve seen, 
I ’ll thank you to think twice before you get 
me in a worse hole than ever,” and as he said 


2ig 



THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


these words he spread out upon Mr. Kirby’s 
table a fairly large sheet of cartridge paper, 
neat, but bearing marks of age, and having 
drawn upon it in the various colours of the 
architect the elevation and plans of a house 
standing in small grounds. There was marked 
a lodge, a ground floor, a first floor and a 
second ; at the back a small enclosed back- 
yard, and in the side elevation could be seen 
let into the high steep roof of the topmost 
story a large skylight. It was beautifully 
tinted in blue. 

“Architects do imitate nature well ! ” said 
Mr. Kirby half to himself. “ It ’s Grey- 
stones ! ’’ and he chuckled. 

“You needn’t laugh, Kirby!’’ thundered 
the aged Postlethwaite. “ Oh, you ’ll laugh 
the other side of your mouth before I ’ve 
done I Ruined, Kirby I Smashed I De- 
stroyed ! And no clue I ’’ 

Mr. Kirby put up his hand. 

“ Please, Mr. Postlethwaite, please,’’ he 
said. “If the place is burnt down I con- 
gratulate you.’’ 

“ ’Tisn’t 1 ’’ snapped Postlethwaite. 

“ Well, if it ’s partially burnt down all the 
better. They ’re more ready to pay when 


221 


THE GREEN OVERCOAl. 


“Not burnt at all ! ” snarled Mr. Postle- 
thwaite loudly. “ Broken ! Destro5^ed ! 
Smashed ! Went there this morning ! Didn’t 
find anybody ! ’’ 

“ They ’d gone out ? ” said Mr. Kirby, with 
a look of aquiline cunning. 

“No one anywhere ! Nothing anywhere ! 
No one on the ground floor ! No one first 
floor ! No one top floor ! No one in the 
studio ! But there ! Smashed ! Broken ! 
Destroyed ! ” 

“ What was ? ”j said Mr. Kirby, beginning 
to be irritated as he_thought of the possible 
delay to his lunch. 

“ What ? ” shouted Mr. Postlethwaite, 
“ everything I tell you ! Skylight, chairs, 
everything. Broken chair in the garden with 
a lot of sheets tied on. Damned foolery ! 
Broken chairs, broken glass, empty bottle, 
beastly dirty mess of food. Now,” he added, 
with rising passion, “ I ’ll have the law on this, 
and it ’s you who did it, Kirby, it 's you 
persuaded me ! ” 

“ Mr. Postlethwaite,” said Mr. Kirby 
quietly, “ ^hat I did try to persuade you was 
to spend a little money on the place. As 
you wouldn’t, and as a tramp wouldn’t look 
at it, I advised you to let it to those young 


222 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


fellows for a month. I knew all about them, 
at least one of them, the one who came to me 
— James McAuley. He’s perfectly all right. 
Said he wanted to paint with his friend. 
I know his father, big doctor in London. 
Boy was at Cambridge. They ’re as right as 
rain, Postlethwaite. If they ’ve hurt your 
property we can get compensation. The 
month ’s not up by a long while, and hang it, 
I did get you prepayment ! ” 

“ We can’t get compensation ? ” huffed Mr. 
Postlethwaite. “ / shall ! ” 

“Yes, you will, of course,” corrected Mr. 
Kirby quietly. “ Do make some sort of 
connected story for me. When did you go 
to Greystones ? ” 

“ Just come from it,” said the aged Postle- 
thwaite glaringly. “ All smashed ! Broken ! 
Destroyed ! ” 

“ Did you find any letter, or note, or 
anything ? ” 

“ Nothing. Told you. Quite empty. And 
a dirty piece of rope chucked up into the rafters 
as well,” he added, as though that were the 
worst and last of his grievances. “ Where are 
those young scoundrels ? ” 

“ My dear Mr. Postlethwaite,” said the 
lawyer suavely, “it isn’t actionable here 

223 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


between four walls. But if you say that kind 
of thing outside you might find yourself in 
Queer Street. Those excellent young men — 
that excellent young James McAuley — paid 
you for the month in advance. You ’ve no 
proof they did the damage.” 

“ They 're responsible,” said Mr. Postle- 
thwaite doggedly, “ so are you. Last man 
six months ago was a vegetarian. Tried to 
raise spirits in the place. Did raise them. 
Haunted now, for all I know. All your 
fault.” 

“ Now, Mr. Postlethwaite,” said Mr. Kirby 
firmly, “ one thing at a time. If you have let 
Greystones get into that condition against my 
advice, you have been exceedingly lucky to 
get two tenants, mad or sane, for even a few 
weeks in the course of a year. Upon my soul, 
I ’m getting tired of Greystones, and all the 
rest of 'em. I 've a good mind ...” 

As a matter of fact, Mr. Kirby had no good 
mind to give up his connection with Grey- 
stones or with any other of old Mr. Postle- 
thwaite’s follies. They were almost the 
only thing in his profession which amused 
him. 

“ Well, what you going to do ? ” snapped 
the old gentleman again. 


224 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“ Go round and see it, I think,” said Mr. 
Kirby, “ and you come with me.” 

Mr. Postlethwaite was somewhat mollified, 
dlis lawyer was taking a little trouble. It was 
as it should be. 

They took a taxi and found themselves, 
twenty minutes or soroutside the town, passing 
the deserted lodge and the scarecrow, mouldy 
gate, and drawing up before the stone steps 
of that deserted, unfurnished, ramshackle 
house which had been Professor Higginson’s 
purgatory for three long days. The two men 
went in together, and Mr. Kirby noted that 
old Postlethwaite had been accurate enough. 
There were the dirty windows, the uncarpeted 
staircase, the bench and table in the right-hand 
ground-floor room which were the sole furniture 
of the lower part of the house ; and there, 
when they came upstairs to it, was the 
wreckage in the studio — the broken skylight, 
the scraps of food, the wooden chairs lying 
smashed on the floor. 

“ Where did you find the third chair ? Funny 
sort of house. Silly of you not to mend it ! ” he 
said, with a return to his habit of irrelevance. 

“ Told you ! ” said Mr. Postlethwaite. 
“ Outside on the ground. Lot of sheets tied 
to it like the tail of a kite.” 

225 


1.5 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“ Box kites have no tails," murmured Mr. 
Kirby, “ he must have thrown it.” 

“ Who ? ” asked Mr. Postlethwaite eagerly. 

“ I don’t know,” said Mr. Kirby with 
charming innocence. 

“You 're making a fool of me ! ” said old 
Mr. Postlethwaite savagely. 

“ No, I ’m not,” returned Mr. Kirby in a 
soothing tone. “ Come, there ’s nothing more 
to be done here. I ’ll write to those young men. 
I ’ll write at once. I ’ll hear the day after to- 
morrow, and I ’ll let you know.” 

“ The day after to-morrow ! ” shrieked old 
Mr. Postlethwaite. “ And the house wide 
open, and anyone coming in through that 
skylight ? ” 

“ It ’d be a charity,” said the lawyer, “ It 
will shelter the little birds.” 

Mr. Kirby made to put his arm into the 
angry old gentleman’s and to lead him down 
the stairs, when he noticed something on the 
floor. It was a scrap of paper. He picked it 
up, glanced at it hurriedly, and put it in his 
pocket. Then — the gesture had taken but 
a moment — he was holding Mr. Postlethwaite’s 
arm and taking him down the stairs. 

“You ought to have a caretaker here for 
a day or two anyhow, Postlethwaite,” said Mr. 


320 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


iiirby as they reached the door. “ 1 know a 
man in a cottage here, I ’ll send him.” 

Mr. Postlethwaite was agreeable. Mr. 
Kirby called at the cottage and sent the man 
up. Then he came back to the cab. 

“ I '11 try and get to hear from McAuley 
to-day,” went on the lawyer, as they got into 
the taxi again and returned to Ormeston. 

By the way, what would you take for Grey- 
stones, Postlethwaite ? ” 

He knew what was coming. Mr. Postle- 
thwaite’s face grew dark and determined. 
Then there passed over it a not very sane leer. 
He nudged the lawyer in the ribs — 

“ Twenty-five thousand,” he said, “ not a 
penny less.” 

“ Make it pence,” said Mr. Kirby, with more 
than usual gravity. 

j Old Mr. Postlethwaite disdained to reply. 

“ Town ’s growing out that side,” he said 
in a tone of immense cunning. “ Not a penny 
less.” 

“ Well,” said Mr. Kirby in a weary tone, 
“ if you won’t set fire to it, I don’t know how 
you ’re going to realise, and upon my soul 
I don’t care.” 

The taxi had drawn up at the door of Mr. 
Kirby’s club. He resolutely refused to pursue 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


matters further with the aged speculator in 
freehold values. 

“ Postlethwaite,” he said, “ you may take 
it from me if you are wise. Wait . . . ” 

Then he added most unprofessionally — 

■ “ If I got thirty thousand would you give 
me half the difference as commission ? ” 

Old Postlethwaite looked up suddenly and 
brightly like a bird. 

“ What ! Five thousand ? ” he said doubt- 
fully. 

He shook his head. He knew that it was 
not very professional. He looked to see 
that no one was coming out of the club, and 
then he whispered — 

“ Three thousand, Kirby, three thousand ! 
And that 's ten per cent.,” he added half 
regretfully. 

“ All right,” said Mr. Kirby with due 
solemnity, “ you wait ! ” and with a re- 
assuring smile he dismissed that poor old man 
to dream of impossible sums. 

Whether Mr. Kirby thought that the house 
could have fetched five hundred pounds — or 
nothing at all — does not really matter to my 
story, for most undoubtedly he had no hope 
or intention of selling the wretched place at 
all unless some lunatic should clamour for it. 


338 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


He went into the club as into a city of 
refuge, and prepared to consider a number of 
little disconnected events that were shaping 
themselves into a very pretty scheme Things 
were beginning to entertain him vastly. It 
was the sort of work he liked. 

First he countermanded his lunch. He 
wanted to think, not eat. Next he pulled 
from his pocket the little slip of paper he had 
picked up at Greystones. He read it carefully. 
It told him little, but that little was curious. 

The paper was University paper. It had 
the University Arms. It seemed to be jotted 
notes. 

He laid it down a moment, and considered 
one or two other unaccountable, disconnected 
matters. Brassington’s Coat, Brassington’s 
Secret God, the Green Coat. Brassington’s 
fetish — gone. Gone quite unexplained, and 
gone — let 's see — ^just a week ago. Missed 
that Monday night at Purcell's. A young 
gentleman, “ a friend of the young master’s,” 
who had called at ” Lauderdale ” that day 
and had asked too many questions about Mr. 
Brassington’s movements. Mr. Kirby smiled 
broadly, and remembered suddenly the letting 
of Greystones some days before. How old 
Jock McAuley’s son — Jimmy, the name was 


229 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


•—had come with pompousness of youth and 
bargained to have Greystones for a month. 
“ To paint,” he said. “ To paint with a 
friend ! ” Yes . . . To paint things red ! 
Mr. Kirby smiled broadly again. He saw 
nothing clear. He saw an imbroglio forming, 
and he gloried in such things ! 

It looked as though that young man and 
his friend had painted thoroughly ! . . . 

I'hey had had a lark . . . and what a lark ! 
Well, they must pay the piper ! . . . They 
had made a night of it. . . . With whom ? 

Mr. Kirby lay back in his very comfortable 
chair in the smoking-room of the club and 
pondered. . . . Someone who went to the 
lectures at the Guelph University here in 
Ormeston had been in that rough and tumble 
in Greystones. ... It had been a students' 
rag he supposed. 

He took up the crumpled slip of paper once 
more and opened it out again carefully. As 
he tried to connect the disjointed phrases 
scribbled upon it he got a bit puzzled. 

What student would want such notes as 
these ? 

“ Memorandum ; Horne does not agree 
with Latouche. Mention this to-morrow in 
the first hour. Return both essays. 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“ The second year work in future to be 
combined with the Medical. Announce 
this at end of first hour.” 

Mr. Kirby pursed his lips and considered 
those words. It was a Professor’s memo- 
randum . . . and it was not the sort of 

notes that a Professor would hand to a pupil 
either. 

There was something else jotted in the same 
hand, but written smaller, in the corner. He 
peered at it and made it out at last, though 
it was hurriedly written as though it were 
a sort of after-thought : — 

“ Ask the Senate next Monday to cancel 
Saturday afternoon, difficult hour. Re- 
member Garden’s number, to ring up 637 
Ormeston Central.” 

Mr. Kirby folded the paper in its original 
creases, put it back into his pocket-book, and 
stretched for the University Calendar, which 
was among the reference books on a table 
beside him. 

There was more than one of these Saturday 
afternoon lectures. The Senate had arranged 
them for popular courses, and the University 
men rather resented them. There was one 


231 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


with History for its subject, one whole set 
called “ Roman Art of the First Century ” 
(and Mr. Kirby grinned), one course on the 
Geological Formation of Oil Areas, one course 
on Psychology, and one on French Literature. 

History, Art, Geology, Psychology, French. 

Methodically, but with all the pleasure of 
the chase, Mr. Kirby turned to the Professors 
in occupancy of the five various chairs. 
Poison, Gaunt, Baker, Higginson, Rolls. 

Then he bethought him which of these 
comic things the enfranchised and cultured 
proletariat could bear least. He decided very 
rightly that it lay between Roman Art and 
Psychology. Gaunt was the Art man, a 
charlatan. He knew him. He remembered 
doing his best to prevent the appointment. 
The Psychology man, Higginson, he had 
met here and there, as everyone met the 
University people in Ormeston, but he could 
call up no very clear picture of him : his was 
a recent appointment, and the town did not 
yet know the new Professor well. 

If it were either of those two men who had 
teen larking with younger men that night 
when old Postlethwaite’s house was turned 
upside down, why, he thought it would 
probably be Gaunt. 


232 


THE GREEN 0\ ERCOAT. 


The problem which was beginning to 
fascinate and enthrall Mr. Kirby would have 
idvanced a stage or two further towards its 
solution had not the swing door of the smoking- 
room been flung up, and had there not burst 
through it, like a shell, the excited and angry 
form of Mr. Brassington. 

Mr. Kirby hated business : he hated worry. 
His delight was to think things out. And 
therefore it was that Providence, which 
:hastens those whom it loves, disturbed him 
rt^ith this sudden and most unquiet apparition 
3f his close friend. Mr. Brassington’s usually 
rareful clothes were crumpled, his face was all 
i-sweat, his tie was quite dreadfully on one 
side, almost under his ear. 

The merchant staggered up to the lawyer, put 
Dne hand on his shoulder, and said hoarsely — 

“ Forgery ! ” 

Mr. Kirby firmly pushed his friend down 
into a chair. 

“ Forgery ? ” he asked in an interested tone, 
looking Mr. Brassington straight in the face. 

Mr. Brassington nodded. 

“ Well, my dear Brassington,” continued 
Mr. Kirby, “ I will do what I can for you, 
but I warn you it is a very difficult crime to 
defend a man for.” 


233 


THE GREEN OVERCOA'l. 

“ What do you mean ? ” said Mr. Brassing- 
ton, bewildered. 

“ Besides which,” went on Mr. Kirby in a 

judicial tone, “ unless you plead lunacy ” 

“ I don’t understand a word you ’re saying, 
Kirby,” shouted Mr. Brassington. “ There ’s 
been forgery ! Do you hear ? Forgery ! 
Someone ’s been forging my name ! ” 

“ O — o — oh ! ” said Mr. Kirby in a reason- 
able tone. “ Someone ’s been forging your 
name ? Much more sensible ! Bring it off ? ” 
he added cheerfully. 

“ If I didn’t know you so well, Kirby 
. . .” began Mr. Brassington savagely, then 
dragging from an inner pocket an already 
dirty cheque, and presenting it with a 
trembling hand, he said — 

” There, look at that ! ” 

Mr. Kirby looked at it in front, then he 
looked at it behind. He saw that a Mr. James 
McAuley had touched two thousand. He 
looked at the front again. He turned it round 
and looked at the endorsement. He looked 
closely at the signature. 

“No,” he said, putting the slip of paper 
close to his eyes, “ that ’s not your signature, 
as you say, but ” (musing thoughtfully) “ it ’s 
very, very like it ! ” 


234 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT 


“ Kirby,” said Mr. Brassington, in tones 
quite new and dreadfully solemn, “ I ’ve a 
son myself . . . but that young man shall 
suffer the full weight of the law ! ” 

Mr. Kirby was looking out of the window. 

“ What young man ? ” he said innocently. 

“ James McAulej'-,” said Mr. Brassington in 
a slow, deep tone, making the most of the long 
vowel. 

“ How do you know he ’s a young man ? ” 
said Mr. Kirby, looking round with interest. 

“ How do I know ? ” shouted Mr. Brass- 
ington, beginning to storm again. “ Why, 
that 's the impudent scoundrel that robbed 
my poor son, sir ! Robbed him at cards ! 
And I tell you what, Kirby,” he added, his 
voice rising more and more angrily, “ I tell 
you what, he ’s calculating on it, that 's what 
he ’s doing. He ’s counting on my wanting to 
hush it up. My wanting to hush up my poor 
son’s fatal weakness.” 

“ Fatal what ? ” said Mr. Kirby. 

^ “ Weakness,”said Mr. Brassington, suddenly 
pulled up. 

“ Oh ! ” said Mr. Kirby quite coolly. “ So 
he ’s the chap that forged the cheque, is he ? ” 

“ Of course ! ” said the indignant Mr. 
Brassington. 


'235 


IHE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“ Well,” replied Mr. Kirby, “ I hope you Ve 
got proof, that 's all ! And I hope, if you 
haven’t got proof, that you haven’t been 
talking to anybody else ! For if you can’t 
prove that he did it it ’s slander, you know. 
You ’re a rich man, Brassington ! You ’re 
the kind of man these gentry like to go 
for, eh ? '’ 

Mr. Brassington, like most of his fellow- 
subjects, lay in a panic terror of lawyers and 
their arts. He was appreciably paler when he 
answered in a far more subdued tone. 

“ I don’t exactly say he did it, I wouldn’t 
say more than I can prove, would I ? Only,” 
and here his voice rose again, “ he ’s got the 
money out of me somehow, and , . . ” 

“ Now look here, Brassington,” said Mr. 
Kirby quietly, ” will you leave this with 
me? ” 

As Mr. Kirby said this he put his head 
somewhat on one side, thrust his hands into 
his pockets, and got the seated Mr. Brass- 
ington into focus. 

“ No — er — yes — if you like,” said Mr. 
Brassington. ” How long ? ” 

Mr. Kirby put his hand before his face and 
leant his elbow upon the mantelpiece. 

“ I don’t know,” he said after a few 


236 


TiiE GREEM OVERCOAT. 


moments. “It may be three or four days, 
or it may be more, or it may be less. Look 
here,” he added, “ will you let me send 
for you if I get a clue ? I think I shall 
get one . . . What a huge balance you 
must keep.” 

“ If that young scoundrel ” began Mr. 

Brassington again. 

“ Now, my dear Brassington,” said Mr. 
Kirby soothingly, “ my dear Brassington, the 
man may be as innocent as, well ” 

“You don’t suspect my son, I suppose ? ” 
broke in Mr. Brassington fiercely. 

Mr. Kirby laughed pleasantly. 

“ Good Lord, no ! ” he said. “ Don’t you 
see, Brassington, life ’s a complicated place. 
Supposing a man knew that your son owed 
McAuley this ” 

“ Owed it ! ” thundered Mr. Brassington. 
“ And how in the name of justice can this 
accursed gambling ” 

“ Now ! Now ! Now ! ” said Mr. Kirby. 
“We won’t go into that ! The point is that 
supposing someone did know that this chap 
McAuley, at any rate, thought it was owed 
him ? ” 

“ He couldn’t have thought so,” said Mr. 
Brassington stubbornly. 


237 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“ Oh, Nonsense ! ” said Mr. Kirby, almost 
at the end of his patience. “ Supposing some- 
one knew that McAuley would take the 
money, there ” 

“ Well ? ” said Mr. Brassington. 

“ Well, then, don’t you see, he might make 
himself out a go-between and take a com- 
mission ? ” 

“ If I get the man ” began Mr. Brass- 

ington again. 

“ Yes, yes, I know,” said Mr. Kirby, “ but 
you ’ve left that to me, and it ’s very wise of 
you. . . . There ’s another thing you ought 
to have left to me. I ’m good at that sort 
of thing. And that ’s your Green Overcnat.” 

Mr. Brassington started. 

“ Oh, I know you ’re superstitious, Brass- 
ington. All you hard-headed, business men, 
or whatever you call yourselves, those that 
have got any brains at least (and there aren’t 
many) show their brains by a little super- 
stition. That ’s my experience. I don’t 
blame you. Only look here. If I get it for 
you . . . ” and he began musing. 

“I’m not superstitious, Kirby,” said Mr. 
Brassington uncomfortably. 

He rose as though the very mention of the 
garment had disturbed him. 

2^8 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


" It ’s just a coincidence. Things do go 
wrong,” he added. 

When he had said this he moved to go. 

“ I ’m sorry,” said Kirby, “ I didn’t know 
you felt so strongly about it. Or rather I did 
know, and I oughtn’t to have spoken.” 

Mr. Brassington was still confused. He 
did not answer, and he made to go out. 

Mr. Kirby did not detain him, but just as 
his friend was opening the door he said — 

“ Brassington, can you show me the counter- 
foil to that cheque ? ” 

“ No, I can’t,” said Brassington. ” Book ’s 
gone. It was in the Overcoat.” \ 

” Oh, the book ’s gone too ! ” said Mr. 
Kirby. “ Well, I hope you ’ve stopped all 
the remaining numbers in the Cheque Book ? ”■ 
‘‘ Yes,” said Mr. Brassington doggedly. 

Mr. Kirby thought a moment. 

“ Brassington,” he said, ” I ’ve got to be 
in London on Wednesday. And I ’m going 
to the Rockingham. I ’m going to give a 
dinner. Will you come ? Will you come 
early — and, I say — bring your son — bring 
Algernon. Come by five o’clock. I ’ll be 
waiting.” 

” I ’ll come,” said Mr. Brassington — as 
though asking why. 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“ I may have news for you,” said Mr. Kirby. 
Brassington looked at him doubtfully, and 
he was gone. 

Hardly was his friend out of the room when 
Mr. Kirby, with something of the gesture that 
a dog with a good nose will make when he is 
getting interested, made for the writing table, 
and noted the appointment. 

“ Before I forget it,” he murmured. 
“ Wednesday, the Rockingham, five — and 
dinner ’s seven. I wish I hadn’t had to make 
a day in such a hurry — but it ’ll serve . . . 
I can always change it,” he thought. 

Then he visualised young McAuley quite 
carefully and clearly. He did these sort of 
things better when his eyes were fixed upon 
a glare. He gazed, therefore, hard at a sunlit 
white wall in a court opposite the club window, 
and as he did so he saw McAuley again quite 
clearly. The fresh, vigorous, young Celtic 
face with its dark and sincere eyes. . . . 

And he wondered who on earth could have 
taken that young man in ! Then he sighed 
a little, and said to himself, aloud — 

“ But it ’s easy to believe anything for two 
thousand pounds ! ” i 

Mr. Kirby left the smoking-room. On his 
way out through the hall he did something 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 

that would have astonished those many 
million innocents who swallow our daily 
press. 

He went to the telephone and rang up 246. 
246 answered very gruffly ; then, suddenly 
appreciating that it was Mr. Kirby who was 
talking, 246 answered with extraordinary 
courtesy. 

Since I may only report what happened at 
my end of the line, let the reader gather what 
it was that Mr. Kirby said. 

He said — 

“ Is that you Robinson ? ** 

Next he said — 

■ “ Any other inspector there ? ” 
j The third thing he said was — 

“ No ! No ! Mr. Brassington’s coat ! 
Advertised, you fool ! ” 

The fourth thing he said was — 

“ It isn’t a question of whether the receiver 
admitted it, but what receiver you traced 
it to.” 

The fifth thing was said very impatiently — 
“ Oh, yes, yes, of course, I know Mr. Brass- 
ington must have asked. The point is, 
which . . . What ? . . . Spell it ! 

M— O— N— T , . . Oh, yes . . . 

Old Sammy ! ” Then came a pause. “ What ? 


16 


241 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


. . . Didn’t go any further ? . . . Done 
nothing more all these days ? . . . Good 
Heavens ...” A shorter pause. Then, 
“ All right . . . Oh, never mind about 

what you didn’t find ! ” and he rang off. 

Thus did Mr. Kirby discover all he wanted 
to know. 

Strange ! But there are quite unofficial 
people, not even dressed up in blue clothes 
and a helmet who are in touch with such 
things as receivers of stolen goods, and ,the 
financiers of the poor and the local Trust in 
Crime. Men who can promote or dismiss the 
mighty Perlice Themselves ! — and these beings 
are often Lawyers. 

Now that he was fairly in cry, he did what 
no dog does — not even the dogs that boast 
they are hounds — he slacked off. He lunched 
well. He smoked half through the afternoon. 
With the evening he lounged off to his office 
before it should close to see if anything new 
awaited him there : and something did. 


243 


CHAPTER XIII. 


In which the Subliminal Consciousness gives 
itself away. 

The work of the Sunday had tired Professor 
Higginson. He did not know that glory could 
weary man so much. 

He rose very late upon the Monday morn- 
ing : he rose certainly without ambition, and 
almost without fear. He was dead beat. By 
the time he had breakfasted it was noon. He 
had no class on Monday. In the early after- 
noon he was due at the Council of the 
University. He remembered the agenda, 
more or less. He had to talk particularly 
about those Saturday lectures. He hated 
them — but first of all he must ring up his 
colleague Garden, who was with him in the 
matter. 

Garden had the telephone — sensible man ! 
But Garden wouldn’t allow his number in the 
book. ... It was ? ... It was 37 

something ? . . . Wait a minute ! Pro- 

fessor Higginson remembered a scrap of paper 


243 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


with a memorandum. That had the number. 
He had put it down last Monday on a scrap 
of paper after the Senate meeting for just 
that occasion, to ring up Garden before the 
Council. 

He had a good memory. He prided himself 
on that. He clearly remembered jotting the 
number down on a scrap of University paper 
in the Senate room. It was the meeting before 
he went to Perkin’s — ^just before his troubles 
began ! 

Professor Higginson felt for that scrap of 
paper intuitively in the watch pocket of his 
waistcoat. He could carry such things there 
for days. It was not in the watch pocket of 
his waistcoat. 

He searched in all the pockets of the suit 
he was wearing. One puts things which one 
is in the habit of carrying instinctively into a 
pocket, and one often does not remember 
when one did it — especially if one is given to 
lapses of The Primary Consciousness and 
Subliminal Thingumbobs ! 

By a process only too familiar to the less 
fortunate members of the professional classes, 
he fingered carefully every edge of the pocket 
lining until he found a large hole, whereat he 
as carefully explored all the vague emptiness 


244 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


of the lining beneath, and as he explored it 
he began to worry, for there was nothing 
there. Then the Professor of Subliminal 
Psychology suddenly remembered ! He had 
taken it out when he dressed that evening for 
Perkin’s. He had put it on to the dressing 
table. He remembered the white paper on 
the white cloth, and he remembered telling 
himself not to forget it. He had put it into 
the pocket — the waistcoat pocket — of his one 
evening suit. 

He went through that one suit very 
thoroughly. He found nothing. He thought 
he might have dropped it when he last 
changed. He stretched upon the floor and, 
lighting matches with infinite difficulty, he 
peered under the bed and under the wardrobe, 
examining every inch of the worn Brussels 
carpet. Not a scrap of paper appeared. 

Then — suddenly — he got a touch of nausea. 
It was borne in upon him more and more 
certainly that the last time he had carried 
that memorandum — and worn that suit — was 
at Perkin’s party, and the days that followed 
and the nights. That bit of paper must have 
dropped during one of his struggles or one 
of his athletic feats in the Accursed.. House ! 
That gave the matter a very new importance. 


245 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


If that ill-omened scrap were still in the empty 
house ! i . . Worse still, supposing some- 
one had found it ? ... It was a clue. 

Professor Higginson lost no time. He took 
the tram, and when he reached the end of it, 
with infinite precautions of looking to right 
and left, pretending to go down side lanes, 
lingering at gates, he managed at last to 
comfort himself with the assurance that no 
one watched him — as indeed no one did. 
Every inch was, for him, alive with spies, and 
he exaggerated the importance of his move- 
ments, for he was a Don. 

An hour or so after he had left the town he 
saw the neglected shrubs, the rotting gate, 
the beweeded gravel path ; and, standing up 
gaunt and terrible before him, the Accursed 
House within its wasted grounds. 

He went up stealthily to the door. It was 
locked. Still gazing over his shoulder with 
nervous precaution, he made an effort to find 
some postern, but the high wall was blind 
everywhere, and the courtyard at the back 
was enclosed upon all sides. 

With a confused but terrible recollection of 
some tag which tells us that no man falls at 
once to the lowest depths of turpitude, and 
with a sigh for the relic of his honour, he tried 


246 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


one of the great front windows. It was 
fast. 

Then Lucifer once again inspired that 
unhappy man with cunning beyond his own. 
He whipped out a pocket-knife, opened the 
thin blade, inserted it in the crack of the 
sash and began to tamper, yes, to tamper, 
with the catch. He felt it giving, as he 
pushed gently and with infinite care lest any 
sound should betray him, when his heart 
suddenly stopped beating, and his blood ran 
dead cold, at the sound of a voice just behind 
him delivering this summons — 

“ What yer at ? ” 

He dropped the knife and leapt round. A 
sturdy fellow, short and thick-set, clothed in 
old bargee trousers and a pea-jacket, and with 
that face of labour which the police call 
“ villainous ” in their reports, was watching 
him unmoved. 

“ What yer at ? ” repeated the badly- 
shaven lips. 

“ I — I was making an experiment,” said 
Professor Higginson at random. 

“Yer was,” said the thick-set man, and 
spat. “And now yer ’ll cut.” 

Professor Higginson was dignified. 

“ My good man,” he said 

247 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“ None o’ that,” said the good man, advanc- 
ing his face in an ugly fashion ; “ I ’ll let yer 
know I ’m the caretaker. Ook it. If there 
was a copper in this Sahary Desert I ’d put 
him on yer for a twofer.” 

Now a “ twofer ” is an insignificant cigar, 
of which two are sold for a penny ; but though 
Professor Higginson did not know this, he 
understood the general drift of the remark, 
and he slowly began to edge away. 

“ I ’ve a mind,” said the pea-jacketed one, 
following him growling to the gate, “ to tell 
Mr. Kirby.” 

“ Mr. who ? ” said Professor Higginson 
eagerly. 

“Mr. Kirby,” repeated the man, sullenly. 
“ It ’s his job this house is.” 

Professor Higginson felt in his trouser 
pocket and produced a florin. The caretaker 
took it, though it only confirmed his suspicions. 

“ Is that the name of the agent for this 
house ? Could I get an order from him ? 
I want to look for — I mean I want to get 
inside ! ” 

“ Yus ! Yer do ! ” said the man. Then : 
“ That ’s the name of Mr. Kirby, and if 
yer ’ve sense yer ’ll get to his orfices afore 
me.” 


248 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


It was a plain hint, but Professor Higginson 
was not grateful. He was considering what 
advantage this information was to him, and 
as he slowly considered it he at last clearly 
grasped that advantage. He would be back 
at that house within three hours : back with 
the key and an order to view. And it would 
go hard with him if he did not find that 
dangerous scrap of paper. He had not wasted 
his florin. 

“ Thank you,” he said rapidly, and was 
gone. 

He reached the tram again before it was 
mid-afternoon. Once in the town he looked 
up a directory in a shop, found Kirby and 
Blake’s direction, and made his way at once 
to that office. 

Mr. Kirby had come in just an hour before. 
He had sat drawing caricatures on blotting- 
paper with stubs of pencil, or gazing at the 
ceiling. He had written private letters with 
his own hand, and addressed to people who 
had no known connection with the firm, and 
he seemed to have attached himself thus to 
his business premises, during that one excep- 
tional afternoon, for the advantage of 
seclusion and of the telephone more than of 
anything else. Moreover, he had asked 


249 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


peevishl)^ once or twice whether such and such 
a one had rung him up or called for him. 

When, therefore, Professor Higginson came 
into the office and asked whether he could see 
Mr. Kirby, said the clerk to him, “ Certainly, 
sir,” and showed him into a room where bound 
copies of Punch and a Graphic three years 
old, also a list of bankrupts, beguiled the 
leisure of clients as they waited their turn. 

“ Will you send up your card ? ” added the 
clerk innocently. 

“No,” worried and feebled the Philoso- 
pher — he had no card — “ say it is Professor 
Higginson, and that he wants to see Mr. 
Kirby most particularly.” 

“ Is Mr. Kirby expecting you ? ” continued 
the clerk. 

“ How should I know ? ” said Mr. Higginson 
half savagely. And the mystified young man 
was more mystified still when, on giving the 
name to his employer, that employer jumped 
up and beamed as though he had been left a 
legacy, or had heard of a dear friend’s return 
from the dead. 

“ Oh, show him up ! ” he said merrily. 
“ Show him up ! Show him up at once 1 ’’ 
and the chief of that great business went half- 
way to the door to meet his visitor. 


250 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


He took him warmly by both hands as he 
bade him be seated. He asked in the most 
concerned way about his present state of 
health, after the terrible adventure which was 
now the talk of thousands. He hoped that 
the heat of the room with its blazing fire was 
not inimical to the Professor’s convalescence. 

Professor Higginson was rather curt for 
such a genial host. 

“ I won’t detain you, Mr. Kirby,” he said, 
“ it is very good of you to have given me a 
moment or two of your valuable time.” He 
thought a moment. He was not good at 
plots, or rather he had had to construct too 
many lately in too short a time. At last he 
began tentatively 

“ Perhaps you know, Mr. Kirby — I am 
afraid it is widely known — in fact, you do 
know, for you have just told me as much — 
that I — that in fact I have had an unfortu- 
nate — er — lapse.” 

Mr. Kirby nodded sympathetically. 

“ Pray do not insist, my dear Professor,” 
lie murmured ; “ most touching, most in- 

teresting. Now with your expert knowledge 
of the phenomena of consciousness ” 

Professor Higginson interrupted. 

“ The point is, Mr. Kirby, that knowing 


25 X 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


you to be in touch with the — what shall I 

say — the residence business ” 

“ Yes ? ” said Mr. Kirby, with a polite 
inflection. 

“ Well, the fact is,” blurted out the 
Philosopher, “ my case presents a point of 
the highest possible interest, the highest 
possible scientific interest, in which you might 
help me. It is about a house.” And here 
the Professor stopped dead. 

Mr. Kirby watched him with crossed legs, 
joined finger-tips, and a very hierarchical 
expression. 

Professor Higginson continued — 

“ I have an instinct, purely subliminal, mind 
you ” (Mr. Kirby nodded, but never took his 
eyes off the Professor’s face, and the Pro- 
fessor’s eyes on their side never left the floor), 
“ purely subliminal, but a strong instinct that 
during those days I was — I saw — no, I mean 
I was spiritually present in a House — a sort of, 
well. House ! ” Mr. Kirby nodded again. 

“ I — I — I had a sort of dream ” 

“ Wait a moment. Professor,” said Mr. 
Kirby respectfully, “ we must get all this 
quite clear. At first I understood that your 
complete loss of memory involved a breach 
in the continuity of consciousness — a blank as 

252 


THE GKEEN OVERCOAT. 

it were. I read all the reports, of course ” (his 
tone was profoundly reverent), “ and I will 
not trespass upon sacred things. But at first 
there was a blank, was there not ? ” 

Professor Higginson put on his lecturing 
tone. “We are using technical terms, my 
dear sir,” he said in a somewhat superior 
manner, “ indeed, highly technical terms. 
Primary consciousness I certainly lost. I 
think I may go so far as to say that I am 
unaware of any action of secondary conscious- 
ness.” Mr. Kirby still nodded gravely, 
following every word. “ But subliminal 
consciousness is a very different matter ! 
That, my dear sir,” continued the Professor, 
smiling awkwardly, “ is my own department 
as it were. Now the subliminal consciousness 
is peculiarly active in dreams, and I certainly 
did have a very vivid dream.” 

“ But if your memory was wrong,” said 
Mr. Kirby with a calculatedly puzzled look, 

“ I mean if your memory failed about it ” 

The Professor shook his head impatiently. 
“ You don’t understand,” he said. “ Please 
let us be clear. There ’s no question of 
memory at all.” 

“ Not at all, not at all,” said Mr. Kirby 
politely, “ only a dream.” 




THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“ It was a vision — a high vision,” said the 
Philosopher. “ I recollect some things clearly. 
A sort of studio roof. A big sort of skylight 
window. I remember that. Now of course 
I never can have been in such a house,” 
continued Professor Higginson. “ It ’s one 
of the first laws of subliminal consciousness 
that impressions are conveyed from one centre 
to another, transversely as it were, and not 
either directly or in the ordinary line from a 
superior to an inferior plane. To put it 
conversationally, not from above to below, 
nor from below to above. Hum ! ” 

“ Of course ! ” said Mr. Kirby. “ Naturally. 
Quite clear.” 

“ The whole theory of telepathy depends 
upon that,” went on Professor Higginson, 
glancing up cautiously at the lawyer and 
dropping his eyes again. 

” It could depend on nothing else,” said 
Mr. Kirby gracefully. 

“ Well, you see,” said the Psychologist, " I 
wasn’t in the house, that ’s quite certain ; I 
had and have no objective knowledge of the 
house. Every psychologist of repute will beai 
evidence to that. It 's the mere A B C of the 
science.” 

” Your reputation,” said Mr. Kirby, “ would 


254 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


weigh more than that of any colleague,” and 
the Professor was gratified. 

“You understand clearly,” went on Mr. 
Higginson. “I never was in that house — 
yet I am certain such a house exists, and — 
well — for reasons that are very private — it is 
really of interest to me to discover where it 
may be, for though my science assures me 
that I had no sort of physical connection with 
it during that extraordinary experience, yet 
I am confident that its connections, inhabi- 
tants or owners, will give me a clue to what 
is now the chief interest of my life— and I 
may add, I hope without boasting, now one 
of the chief subjects before scientific Europe. 
In the interest of Science I should see that 
house. I should visit it . . . Soon. 

Indeed, to-day. ... I wonder if you can 
help me ? . . . The house looked north,” 

he continued abruptly, shutting his eyes and 
groping with his hands to add a wizard effect 
to the jerky sentences. “There was a drive 
up to it with laurel bushes, a rather weedy 
drive. There were four stone steps to the 
door, I remember those steps well, and— oh ! 
there was a lower ground-floor room with one 
window looking on to a backyard. . . . 

If I can And that house and have an order 


255 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


from its owner to visit it I shall be pro- 
foundly grateful — I thought you might help 
me." 

' “ I ’ve got it all down," said Mr. Kirby, 
scribbling hurriedly, " and I will certainly 
find it for you. The cause of Science, Professor 
Higginson, is a sacred cause." 

« " If you can ! — oh ! if you can get me an 
order now, to-day ! " burst out the Professor, 
opening his eyes suddenly and cutting short 
in his desperation. “ I — I — ^well, I should like 
to look over that house. It would be of the 
highest possible scientific interest. Can you," 
he added nervously, and as though he was 
in a hurry to catch a train or something of 
that sort, “ can you let me have the keys — 
now ? " 

" My dear sir,” said Mr. Kirby, looking up 
gently, " my dear sir, I really cannot yet be 
certain what house it may be, nor whether 
our firm are the agents for it, nor even 
whether it ’s to let, though I think it may be 
one I have in my mind.” 

He glanced at his notes again. 

“ Oh, yes, your firm are the agents," said 
the Professor eagerly, and then added, 
suddenly appreciating that he was giving 
himself away, " I remember receiving witb 



“/ remember receiving, with extraordinary vividness, 
that spiritual impress.” 


17 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


extraordinary vividness during that curious 
vision the spiritual impress that your firm 
vvere the agents.” 

Mr. Kirby said nothing and looked nothing, 
and the Professor eagerly went on to cover his 
tracks — 

“You must know that in these purely 
subliminal phenomena, there is a marvellous 
sense of the atmosphere, of the — er — conno- 
tations of the locality — the dream locality.” 

“ Well,” began Mr. Kirby slowly, “ of 
course, we could not refuse you. Professor 
Higginson, in a matter of such high scientific 
importance. ... We might have to get the 
leave of the owner, but in the normal course 
of things we could let you look over it, only, 
you see,” he went on with a puzzled expression, 
“ you really haven’t told me enough to fix me 
yet as to what house it can be. . . . We 
have so many to remember,” he mused. . . . 
“ It is a peculiar sort of a house. Unfurnished, 
I think you said ? ” he continued, looking at 
his notes, “except on the top floor, where 
there was a studio. Now, Professor,” and 
here he looked suddenly at his visitor, “ can’t 
you recollect any other detail, some sort of 
faint impression ? ” 

“ N — no,” said Professor Higginson timidly. 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT 


“ You must remember the circumstances 
were extraordinarily ” 

“ For instance,” said Mr. Kirby imper- 
turbably, “ have you any recollection of 
where the bed was ? Was it in a sort of little 
dark room beyond the studio ? It is an 
extraordinary thing,” he continued, pulling 
up his sock as he said it, ” that one cannot 
keep one’s sock up on one’s leg without those 
horrible little garters, which I for one will 
not wear.” ' 

“Now you suggest it,” said Professor 
Higginson slowly and with something of the 
feeling that a mule may have when it feels the 
drag on the rope, “ now you suggest it I have 
a recollection of something of the sort. ; . . 
And by the way, I seem also to remember a 
delicious heavenly music.” 

“ Ah ! ” said Mr. Kirby, and he gazed at a 
point on the carpet about eleven feet away, 
“ wonderful thing music, only seven notes, 
and see what a lot you can get out of ’em ! 
I will smoke a cigar if you don’t mind,” and 
he lit one. Now, were there three chairs in 
the room, and do you remember anything of 
a rope ? ” said Mr, Kirby. 

“I’m not — quite — sure — about — the rope,’' 
lied Professor Higginson, pausing between 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


every word, “ but the chairs ? Ye — es ! I think 
I did see chairs — wooden chairs.” 

“ And was the skylight broken ? ” 

“ No — yes — possibly — very probably,” 
floundered the Philosopher. 

“ Then I Ve got it,” said Mr. Kirby 
briskly, “ I Ve spotted it ! You were quite 
right when you said you ’d never been there 
in the flesh. At least, I don’t think you ever 
can have been there. It isn’t in this town at 
all. It isn’t in England. It’s a place my 
firm looks after in the Hebrides — wonderful 
old place, you know — deserted. A Manse it 

was. Now the history of that house ” 

he was continuing volubly, when the Professor 
checked him. 

“ Not at all ! Not at all ! ” he said angrily, 
“ I tell you it is somewhere close by here ! In 
Ormeston ! ” 

“ My dear sir ! ” said Mr. Kirby, opening 
wide eyes, “ how can you know that a duplicate 
of the house I am thinking of ? ” 

“ I ’ve told you already,” snapped Higgin- 
son. “ In these visions one has connotations 
of atmosphere, and so on.” 

“ Well,’^’ said Mr. Kirby, after that outburst, 
shaking his head slowly from side to side, 
“ then I ’m of no use, none at all. I do know 


THE GREEN OVERCUAl. 


by chance that place in the Hebrides, saw 
it only last year. Doing it to oblige a cousin. 
Would have been most interesting, most 
interesting, if it had been that. Don’t you 
think it could be that ? They ’re full of 
second sight in those parts.” 

“ No,” said Professor Higginson, rising with 
determination and in some anger, “no, I 
do not think it could be that.” 

“ Well, then,” said Mr. Kirby hopelessly, 
“ I don’t see how I can help you. Don’t you 
think two connotations may have got mixed 
up ? ” 

“ No, I don’t,” said the Professor shortly^ 
more and more possessed of the feeling that 
things were going wrong with him. “ I don't 
think so. It ’s impossible. These things have 
their laws, sir, just as nature has, I mean 
ordinary nature, common nature, what we — er 
— call Natural Laws.” 

Mr. Kirby nodded agreeably 

“ I don’t think,” went on Professor 
Higginson, “ that I ought to take up any 
more of your time.” 

“ Oh, but I should particularly like to hear 
more,” said Mr. Kirby with enthusiasm. 

“ I ’m afraid it ’s no use,” said Professor 
Higginson, and he made to go out. 


261 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


He was actually at the door, when Mr 
Kirby added — 

“ Professor Higginson, I ’ve half promised 
some friends to ask you to dine in London 
after your lecture. It was a great liberty — 
but they knew I lived in Ormeston. I wonder 
whether I might presume ? Shall I drop you 
a line ? It ’s the Rockingham. I might 
tell you something then. I might find 
out.” 

“Yes,” said Professor Higginson with no 
enthusiasm, but he badly wanted to see that 
house and search it for that haunting scrap 
of paper, and he didn’t want to lose touch 
with the Order to View, ” yes, by all 
means.” 

” You see,” added Mr. Kirby apologetically, 
“ by the time you come to dine with me in 
London on Wednesday I might be able to 
suggest a lot of things — an almost unfurnished 
downstairs room with a big deal table in it, 
and oaken stairs, uncarpeted, and, oh ! all 
the sort of things that you would expect in 
a house of that kind.” 

“ Yes,” said Professor Higginson, flabber- 
gasted. 

” Well, well,” said Mr. Kirby more cheer- 
fully, and shaking him cordially by the hand, 


263 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“ I won’t keep you ; next Wednesday in 
town ! I ’ll write ! ” and he sauntered back 
into his room. 

The great Psychologist slowly paced the 
street outside, then despair gave him relief, 
and he went home to bed. 


263 


CHAPTER XIV. 


In which, incredible as it may seem, a non-Pole 
has the better of a Pole. 

On Tuesday morning Mr. Kirby woke eager 
for action. Things were fitting in. It was 
great fun. 

Mr. Kirby loved to fit things in — he ought 
to have been a soldier. 

He calculated with a pleasing exactitude. 
That morning — thanks to the stupid police 
and the telephone — ^he would find the Green 
Overcoat ; that afternoon and evening he 
would invite such other guests as pleased him 
to dine with him next day, the Wednesday, 
in London, after Professor Higginson’s great 
lecture upon the Immortality of the Soul. It 
was an interesting subject, the Immortality 
of the Soul. 

To make certain that all his guests should 
be there, he would try to talk to one of them 
in London over the telephone from Ormeston 
that night. . . . One of them called James 
McAuley. He liked the boy. While he was 


264 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT 


about it he thought he would get a friend 
of McAuley’s to come as well. He didn’t 
know the name of the friend, but no matter ; 
one should always ask one’s friends’ 
friends. 

So deciding, Mr. Kirby, delighted at the 
brightness of the day, walked merrily towards 
a quarter of Ormeston which we have already 
visited, and which is not the choice of the rich. 
He walked through the dirty, narrow little 
streets, prim in his excellent kit, well-groomed 
and flourishing. He was old-fashioned 
enough to have a flower in his button-hole, 
and he had been very careful with his hat. 
He was going to see someone he knew, some- 
one he had known professionally in the past, 
and with whom a few years ago he had had 
very interesting business. He was going to 
see a man who bore a fine old crusading 
name, but who must have come down some- 
what in the world, though doubtless he had 
kept his family pride. He was going to see 
a Mr. Montague. 

He knocked at the door in a sharp, com- 
manding sort of way. It was opened quickly, 
and the little old figure appeared within, 
armed with insolence. When the eyes 
recognised Mr. Kirby, the face of that little 


265 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


old figure turned in a moment from insolence 
to servility. 

“ Good morning, Samuel,” said Mr. Kirby 
briskly. “No, I won’t come in, thank you. 
I only want you to tell me something. I ’m 
sorry to trouble you. Where ’s that Green 
Overcoat of Mr. Brassington’s ? He lost it a 
few days ago, and a friend of mine told me 
that you were quite likely to know.” 

I will waste neither my time nor the reader’s 
in describing Mr. Montague’s face at hearing 
this question ; but I will say this much, that 
it looked like one of those faces carved in hard 
stone, which antiquity has left us, quite white, 
not expressionless, but with an expression 
concealed, and as one might swear, dumb. 
But the face spoke. It said in a very un- 
natural voice, a voice lacking breath — 

“ I swear to God I don’t know, Mr. Kirby. 
If I knew, I swear to God I ’d tell you.” 

“ Just tell me what you did with it,” said 
Mr. Kirby easily and rapidly, looking at his 
watch. " I ’ve got to fit a lot of things in.” 

“ I swear to God, sir,” said the face, “ I 
gave it away.” 

Mr. • Kirby’s smile grew stronger, then 
suddenly ceased. He believed him. 

“ Was that all, Samuel ? ” he asked. 


266 



Tinned in a moment from insolence to servility. 


THE GJiEEN OVERCOAT. 


turning to go. There was a grave suggestion 
of peril in his voice. 

The face said only — 

“ Well, I had to warn my own lot, Mr. 
Kirby ; I had to warn my nephew, sir. I had 
to warn Lipsky not to touch it, not touch it 
on any account, Mr. Kirby ! ” 

“ Lipsky in the Lydgate ? ” said Mr. 
Kirby. “ Then he ’s got it ! Good morning, 
Samuel,” and the lawyer strode away. 

He was sorry to have gone out of his wa5'’ 
by a quarter of a mile, but he was glad to have 
got the information he desired. 

The little closed shop in the Lydgate seemed 
to have something deserted about it as he 
came near. Mr. Kirby was familiar with the 
stack of old suits outside, the big placarded 
prices, the occasional announcements of a 
sale. To-day things seemed less promising 
and less vivacious, as though the master’s 
hand were not there. Mr. Kirby had known 
that master also in the past — all in the way 
of business — and if anything had happened 
to him he would have regretted it like the 
passing of a landmark. He walked straight 
into the shop, and there, instead of the 
Pole Lipsky, what he saw was an obvious 
non-Pole, an inept Midland youth with flaxen 


268 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


hair, a stammerer, and a very bad sales- 
man, 

Mr. Kirby addressed his young compatriot 
quickly but courteously. 

“ Would you be kind enough to give me 
Mr. Brassington’s Green Overcoat ? ” he said. 

“ Wh-wh-wh-what ? ” said the non-Pole, 
utterly at sea. 

There is a type in the modern world which 
is not destined to commercial success, and 
certain forms of the non-Polish type present 
extreme examples of the kind. 

“ Mr. Brassington’s Green Overcoat,” re- 
peated Mr. Kirby steadily and hard. 

Upstairs Lipsky, rising from his sick bed, 
heard. He heard the unusual voice, he heard 
the name, and, as I have written some pages 
back, he came down. 

There is always a common bond between 
intelligence and intelligence, though the intelli- 
gence of the one man be that of an English- 
man and of the other man be that of a Pole ; 
and as Lipsky entered the shop Mr. Kirby 
and he at once picked up communications, 
and the assistant at once dropped out of the 
scheme. 

“ Oh, Mr. Lipsky, ” said Mr. Kirby 
courteously, “I’m afraid you ’ve been ill ! 


269 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


I ’m sorry for that ! But the fact is I 'm 
rather in a hurry, and have come for Mr. 
Brassington’s Green Overcoat.” 

“ Yes, Mr. Kirby, certainly,” said the 
shopkeeper. 

He did not understand this race which was 
not his, but he knew perfectly well that Mr. 
Kirby would not betray him. 

“ Very glad you 've called, Mr. Kirby. I 
just got it done up to send round to Mr. 
Brassington’s this minute. My assistant took 
it in, sir.” >t 

“ I ” began the non-Pole. 

” Silence ! ” thundered Mr. Kirby to his 
compatriot, and Mr. Lipsky was very grateful. 

Mr. Lipsky continued eagerly — 

“ You ’ll find it all right, Mr. Kirby. There 's 
the cheque book in the pocket, that ’s how I 
knew it ! ” 

“Yes, of course,” said Mr. Kirby airily, 
“ that ’s all right.” 

“ You won’t take it, Mr. Kirby,” said Mr. 
I.ipsky respectfully ; “ I ’ll have it sent.” 

“Yes, certainly,” nodded Mr. Kirby, as he 
went out of the shop. “No hurry, any time 
this afternoon — to my private house, not my 
office, you know.” 

Mr. Lipsky came to the door and smiled 



I 

! 



THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


him out — such a smile! Yes, Mr. Lipsky 
knew that private house of Mr. Kirby’s I He 
had been granted two or three interviews 
there. He knew it extraordinarily well. 

The lawyer went back through the sunlit 
streets at a loose end. He felt unusually 
leisured, though he was a leisured man. Like 
the peri in the poem, his task was done. 

He basked through that afternoon. He 
rang up the Rockingham Hotel in London to 
reserve a room and to order dinner for the 
next day. He rang up his friend Brassington 
again, to be sure of the appointment, and to 
be sure that Brassington was bringing his 
son. Then, when evening came, he took down 
the big London telephone book and looked up 
the number of Sir Alexander McAuley, the great 
doctor. It was years since Mr. Kirby had 
seen him ; but they had known each other 
well in the past, and he would not mind the 
liberty. Besides which, what Mr. Kirby 
wanted as he called up Trunks after dinner 
that Tuesday evening was not Sir Alexander, 
but his son, Mr. James. Time pressed, and 
Mr. Kirby was very keen on talking to Mr. 
James McAuley. 

He got Sir Alexander’s house. He heard 
that Mr. James McAuley was out. He got 


272 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


the name of the restaurant where the youth 
was dining with some friends. He rang up 
that restaurant, and at last, a little after half- 
past nine, he had the pleasure of hearing 
Jimmy’s fresh voice at the end of the wire. 

What that conversation was I must, in 
my next chapter, take the reader to the 
other end of the wire to inform him; but 
hardly had he put down the receiver when 
the door-bell rang and the non-Pole, carrying a 
bundle for Mr. Kirby, appeared in the hall. 
Evidently Mr. Lipsky was a good business 
man. He would not disturb the routine of 
his shop ; things that did not belong to 
business hours he did outside business hours, 
and he knew how to get the most out of his 
assistant’s time. 

There stood in Mr. Kirby’s study a large 
Ottoman. He lifted the lid of that Victorian 
piece of furniture, and bid the boy put the 
bundle in. 

Mr. Kirby was wholly devoid of super- 
stition. None the less, he went out of the 
house shortly after, and during the hour or 
two at his disposal he took the Midland air. 
Of course, there was nothing in Mr. Brassing- 
ton’s private twist about Green Overcoats, but 
why should a sensible man run any risks at all 1 


18 


273 


CHAPTER XV. 


In which three young men eat, and not only eat, 
but drink. 

There are few restaurants left in London 
where gentlemen may meet with some sort of 
privacy and with the chance of eating reason- 
able food. It might be more accurate to say 
there are none. But whether there are any 
left or not, I am going to invent one for the 
purposes of this story, and to inform you 
that on this same Tuesday night upon which 
Mr. Kirby was telephoning to Sir Alexander 
McAuley, Jimmy and Melba were very kindly 
entertaining Algernon Sawby Leonidas 
Brassington — Mr. Brassington, Jun., for 
short — at dinner in a private room at 
Bolter’s. 

Bolter’s, I need hardly inform such a woman 
of the world as my reader, is the one place 
left in London where a man can dine well and 
yet at his ease. It stands in a little street off 
Regent Street eastward, and by a happy 
accident has been worthy of its reputation 


274 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


for seventy years. Either it has not paid 
Bolter’s, or Bolter’s has been too proud, but 
anyhow the Whelps of the Lion are quite 
ignorant of Bolter’s, so are the cousins of the 
noble beast, so certainly are the greater part 
of such degraded natives of the European 
Continent as we permit to visit our Metropolis 
and to stare at our Imperial Populace. 

Even the young bloods for the most part 
have not heard of Bolter’s, and as it never 
spends a penny on advertisements, its name, 
on the rare occasions when it appears in an 
article or a letter, is ruthlessly struck out in 
proof by the blue pencil of the editor. 

Bolter’s is known and loved by perhaps 
two hundred families. It is a tradition, and 
as you may well imagine, enormously expen- 
sive. If you are two dining at Bolter’s, you 
may expect to spend £y, and if you are three, 
£io. If you are very rich, it is worth your 
while to dine at Bolter’s. If you are only 
moderately rich, it is worth your while. 
If you are poor, it is also worth your while to 
go to prison for not paying — so excellent is 
the food. 

All this I tell the reader in order that he 
may know how and why Jimmy and Melba 
were entertaining their friend. That, friend. 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


though his father was a very wealthy man, 
was a little awed by the surroundings. He 
had heard of Bolter’s — once on twice, not 
more — from the fringes of tha’t governing 
world in which some of his University friends 
lived. He remembered the son of a Cabinet 
Minister complaining of Bolter’s, and a peer 
of the realm (a former furniture dealer and 
picture broker and for that matter money- 
lender) saying that Bolter’s was filthy. Such 
praise was praise indeed. He remembered 
that ladies did not go to Bolter’s. He re- 
membered talk of a dinner at Bolter’s just 
before a little group of men had gone out in 
his first year to India, and now that he was 
sitting in Bolter’s he felt duly impressed. He 
knew that Jimmy’s people were “ in ” what 
he could never be “ in.” Melba was more 
of an enigma to him, but anyhow Melba was 
thick with Jimmy and Jimmy’s lot. In other 
words, he knew that Jimmy and Melba were 
both on the right side of a certain line which 
runs round very definitely through the core 
of English society and encloses a very narrow 
central space ; but, on the other hand, he 
knew — he had the best of reasons for knowing 
— that they were not exactly flush. He knew 
they couldn’t be flush because whereas he. 


276 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


Leonidas, had in the past won ;^i, 8 oo off 
them at cards — and spent it — they, Jimmy 
and Melba, had won £2,000 off him — and had 
never got it ! For his father (unlike their 
fathers) had refused to pay. But Mr. Brass- 
ington, Jun., was not the man to introduce 
a subject of that kind. It is a subject of the 
kind that jars on toffs, unless indeed the toffs 
themselves introduce it. And on this 
particular occasion they did. 

Mr. Brassington, Jun., had drunk reason- 
ably, Jimmy largely, Melba immoderately. 
They had come to that one of the many 
courses which consisted in a very small 
frozen bird, when Jimmy playfully threw a 
bone at his guest (who ducked and missed it), 
and followed his action with the words — 

“ You didn’t think we should run to this, 
did you. Booby ? ” 

“ Well,” said Algernon Sawby Leonidas 
Brassington delicately, “ of course, I knew 
that you wanted me to settle, and God knows 
I tried.” 

“ That ’s all right,” said Melba, in a voice 
still clear and articulate. “ Your father ’s 
paid.” 

And having said this, he burst into some- 
what unreasoning laughter, choked, and 


277 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


drank a large tumbler of wine to cure his 
choking. 

Booby was bewildered. 

“My . . . father 's . . . paid ? ” he 
said slowly. 

Jimmy nodded to confirm the great truth. 

“ Touched last week, Booby,” he said. 

“ Where ? ” wondered the astonished Booby. 

“At the bank,” said Melba, and Jimmy 
added, “ Oddly enough.” 

“Not the whole thing ? ” said Booby, his 
face changing in expression as he said it. 

Melba’s mouth being full for the moment, 
he did no more than lift up his eyes, nod and 
grunt. Jimmy, who was occupied in a swill, 
put down the inebriant, drew a breath, and 
said — 

“The whole boodle!” 

It was perhaps well for the two young men 
principally concerned that they were rapidly 
getting drunk, for in early youth the vice of 
drunkenness, so fatal to maturer years, will 
often lead to astonishing virtues. And long 
before they came to the cheese Jimmy and 
Melba had discovered that they must talk of 
the matter seriously. ^ 'Indeed, Jimmy verged 
on the sentimental, Melba upon the stupidly 
pompous, as the ordeal approached. It was 


378 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


over coffee that they faced it, and brandy was 
their aid. 

“ Look here, Booby,” said Jimmy, after he 
and Melba had spent a silent five minutes 
mentally egging each other on, “ you ought 
to know the truth, it ’s only fair. We made. 
your father sign.” 

Algernon Sawby Leonidas Brassington had 
a sudden retrospective vision of his father, 
and he could make no sense out of the words. 

“You made him ? ” he said, flushing a 
little. “ Cursed if you did ! He 'd make you 
more like ! ” 

An illogical phrase enough, but one suffi- 
ciently full of meaning. 

“ Possibly,” said Jimmy, with the insulted 
dignity of a person who has dined. “ If you 
don’t want to hear about it you needn’t.” 

“ Shut up, Jimmy,” said Melba diplo- 
matically. 

He tried to make his high and now un- 
certain voice kind as he went on to the younger 
Mr. Brassington — 

“ You see. Booby, it ’s like this. Th’ was 
a lillel comprulsion — y' know. There was 
scene, wasn’t there, Jimmy ? ” 

“ Oh, yes, scene right 'nough I ” said 
Jimmy. ; 


279 


The green overcoat. 

“Well, anyhow, he gave us the cheque, 
and then, you know, we had to prevent its 
getting out— his getting out, I mean.” 

“ I don’t understand a word you say,” said 
Booby. 

“ No,” said Jimmy too thoughtfully, glaring 
at the fire. “ We were 'fraid that.” 

“ If there ’s a row. Booby,” said Melba 
affectionately, “ if there 's real row, y’ ought 
to be warned. That 's what we think.” 

“ That ’s it,” said Jimmy. 

Then under the impression that their ordeal 
was over and their duty done, the two con- 
spirators lapsed into silence. It was a silence 
which might have lasted some minutes. 

It iVas broken by the ringing of an electric 
bell in the corridor outside, a sound muffled 
by the door, and the German reservist 
whom his unscrupulous Government secretly 
paid to wait at table at Bolter’s, came in to 
tell Mr. McAuley that he was wanted at the 
telephone. 

The god Bacchus, when he came out of Asia 
with those panthers of his, came into Europe 
the master of many moods, and Jimmy was 
a young man careless and content as he lifted 
the receiver. He heard a clear and rather 
high voice ask him whether he was Mr. 


280 



Mr. McAuley was wanted at the telephone. 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


McAuley. It was a voice he seemed to 
remember. It was the voice of Mr. Kirby. 

" I asked them at home where you w’ere,” 
said the voice, “ and they told me I should 
find you if I rang up Bolter’s.” 

“ Thank you,” said Jimmy too loudly — 
but he had no cause for gratitude! 

" I am talking from Ormeston,” said the 
voice ; “ my name is Kirby.” 

Jimmy’s mood began to change, 

“ I ’ve asked for six minutes,” the voice 
went on, “ but I may as well tell you at once. 
It 's about that house you took — Greystones. 
Now, Mr. McAuley, in your own interests, 
would you be good enough to take the 10.15 
from King’s Cross. I ’ll meet you at Ormeston 
Station.” 

The very brief heroic mood not unknown 
to the god Bacchus now rushed over Jimmy. 

“ Upon my word, sir 1 ” he began. Then 
in the twinkling of an eye another mood — 
one of alarm — prompted him to add, “Is it 
anything really urgent ? ” And his third 
mood was panic. 

Good Lord 1 He could imagine one or two 
terribly urgent things in connection -jAdth 
Greystones. What if old Brassington were 
lying there dead ? What if he had exploded, 


282 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


and told the police in spite of his own 
shame ? 

“ Mr. Kirby ! ” he cried in a changed voice 
into the little black cup, “ Mr. Kirby ! ” The 
wire was dumb, there was only the buzzing 
and spitting and little fiendish snarls which 
the marvellous invention has added to modern 
life. “ Mr. Kirby! ” said Jimmy still higher 
and for the third time, but it was a woman’s 
voice that answered — 

“ Another three minutes ? ” it said snap- 
pishly, and then the wire went dead. 

Twice more and once again did poor Jimmy 
implore the voice, but Mr. Kirby knew the 
nature of man, especially of youthful man. 
He had not attempted to persuade. In the 
study of his own house at Ormeston he had 
already replaced the receiver, and was taking 
down from the book-shelf a volume of Moliere. 
He loved that author, and there was a good 
two hours before he need meet the night mail 
at the station. 

After a quarrel with the clerk-in-charge 
and sundry foolish troubles, Jimmy abandoned 
the machine. He came back to his two com- 
panions. They were in the thick of some silly 
vinous argument or other, ^hey looked up at 
his entry, and they saw that he was changed. 


283 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“What’s matter, Jimmy?” said Melba. 

“ I — I — I want to talk to you,” said Jimmy 
nervously, and singularly sober. He looked 
at Booby. 

“ Oh, don’t mind me,” said Booby. 

“ Well, but we do,” said Jimmy ruefully, 
and he drew Melba into the passage outside. 

“ There ’s a row up,” he said. 

“ What about ? ” said Melba. 

“ Old Brassington,” said Jimmy in a 
nervous whisper. 

“ Peached ? He wouldn’t dare,” whispered 
Melba incredulously. 

“ Why not ? ” said Jimmy, agonised. 
“ I ’ve been called, you know. Called up 
from Ormeston. Urgently. By the lawyer. 
There ’s a thing in the law, Melba, called 
‘ duress.’ ” 

“ Oh, rats ! He can’t prove anything ! ” 

“Damn it all!” said Jimmy, “we don’t 
know that.” 

“ He wouldn’t make a fool of himself,” 
continued Melba uncomfortably. 

“You can’t ever tell with these old jossers. 
Anyhow, that lawyer chap my father knows, 
the man we got the house from, has rung me 
up, and I ’ve got to go and see him in Ormeston 
to-night by the 10.15.” 


284 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


Melba said nothing. 

“ Would you go ? ” continued Jimmy, 
seeking valiance from his friend. 

“No,” said Melba stoutly. 

“ ‘Tisn’t you that have got to do it,” said 
Jimmy bitterly. “ ’Twas me he called up. 
I signed, you know, Melba. It ’s my name 
they ’ve got.” 

“If it was me ” began Melba. 

“ Tisn’t you,” said Jimmy rudely, and as 
he said it Booby came out. 

“ If you two are going to talk business,” he 
said suspiciously, “I’m going home to my 
rooms.” 

“ Fact is. Booby,” said Jimmy, “ I ’ve just 
heard about my aunt ; she ’s dying.” 

Booby was concerned. 

“ Oh, dear ! ” he said. 

“Yes,” went on Jimmy rapidly, bringing 
out his watch, and seeing that it lacked only 
seven minutes of ten, “ it ’s bad, very bad ! 
I can’t wait.” 

He thrust himself into his coat, looked over 
his shoulder as he ran down the stairs, and 
with the very disconcerting cry, “ Keep 
Booby !/’ hurled at his companion, he sought 
the street and a taxi, and was half-way to 
King’s Cross before he remembered that Melba 


285 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


must pay for the dinner. But the thought 
was small comfort compared with the trial 
that was before him. And for an hour and 
three-quarters as the train raced up north to 
the Midlands he comforted himself less and 
less at the prospect. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


In which cross-examination is conducted “ en 
echelon,” and if you don’t know what that means 
^ I can’t help you. 

Cheerful, more than cheerful, all smiles, Mr. 
Kirby was standing at midnight upon the 
arrival platform of the great station at 
Ormeston as the night mail came in. He saw 
the slender figure of a young man whose every 
gesture betrayed an absurd anxiety coming 
bewildered up from the end of the train, and 
looking about him as though seeking a face. 

It was a fine cordial welcome that greeted 
James McAuley, not in the least what he had 
expected. He was enormously relieved. 

“ My dear Mr. McAuley,” said the lawyer, 
with a fine generosity of impulse and in the 
heartiest of tones, “ how very good of you to 
come! I confess I was very much in doubt 
whether you would understand the urgency 
of my message at such short notice. You 
see,” he added, lying expansively, “ they cut 
us off.” 


287 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“ Yes,” said Jimmy, thinking that explained 
all. 

“It was a terrible nuisance,” pattered on 
Mr. Kirby, as he led the boy outside to a cab ; 
“ that ’s the worst of the telephone. It ’s a 
great help in one way, but . . . Why, you 
haven’t brought a bag ! ” 

“ No,” said Jimmy. “ I shall go back by 
the night mail.” 

“ As you will, my dear sir,” said the lawyer. 

He gave the address of his house, and they 
drove off. 

When they got into the study and were 
served with drink, Jimmy remembered his 
anxieties. He considered that imperative 
message and that hurried journey. The 
business must be very urgent indeed. He 
was the more certain of it as he watched Mr. 
Kirby’s face change to an expression more 
settled and less familiar. As Mr. Kirby said 
nothing, Jimmy volunteered another remark. 

“ I was giving young Brassington a dinner,” 
he said. “ Perhaps you know him ? He 
was at King’s with me.” Mr. Kirby said 
nothing. “ He belongs to this town,” added 
Jimmy. 

Mr. Kirby opened fire in a grave and 
measured voice. 


288. 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“ Mr. McAuley,” he said, “ I know that you 
know young Mr. Brassington.” 

The words seemed to have a little more 
meaning than Jimmy liked. 

“ I am an intimate friend of Mr. Brassington, 
Senior. . We think a good deal of him in 
Ormeston, Mr. McAuley.” 

Jimmy crossed his legs, leant back in his 
chair, sipped his wine, and put on an uncon- 
cerned, man-of-the-world visage, not unlike 
that of a criminal about to be hanged. 

Mr. Kirby, with his head thoughtfully 
poised upon the fingers of his right hand, and 
looking steadily away from Jimmy’s face, 
said — 

“Yes, we know Mr. Brassington, and we 
respect him highly.” 

Jimmy could bear the tension no longer. 

“ What is it you want to say to me about 
Greystones,” he said suddenly. 

“ Oh, yes, Greystones,” said Mr. Kirby, 
“ of course ! But your mention of the Brass- 
ingtons made me turn my mind to that sad 
loss Mr. Brassington has had. I dare say his 
son told you. I am afraid he can’t recover — 
but the bank admits it is a forgery.” 

“ Forgery ! ” shrieked Jimmy. 

It suddenly occurred to him that Booby’s 


19 


289 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


fiendish father had discovered an awfully 
effective line of attack. 

“ Well, well,” said Mr. Kirby, “ that ’s not 
business. Of course, I shouldn’t have 
troubled you as I have about other people’s 
business. But about Greystones, Mr. 
McAuley, the trouble is — of course, I do not 
blame you, but you will see you are legally 
responsible — well, the trouble is that after 
you left the place — painting, weren’t you, I 
think ? — we found the studio in — well, in an 
odd condition ; and, you see,” he went on, 
shifting his position, and still conversational, 
“ between you and me, the owner of the house 
is a little — why, almost a little odd." Mr. 
Kirby smiled as he proceeded. “ It ’s not 
my business to talk about one client to 
another,” he said, “ but you ’ll understand 
me. Fact is, it really sounds too ridiculous, 
and I did what I could to stop him ; but you 
will understand why I telephoned. He said 
he ’d summons you to-morrow. He says it ’s 
twenty-one pounds.” 

Jimmy heard not a word. He was thinking 
of vastly more important things. 

Mr. Kirby continued — 

" Of course, I would have paid and 
communicated with you afterwards, Mr. 


290 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


McAuley.” Mr. Kirby laughed professionally. 
“You are legally responsible, whoever it was 
got in and did the harm. The time isn’t up, 
you see, and you know the absurdity of the 
thing is that a man can issue a writ like that ! 
Why, bless you, you can go and buy a pair of 
boots on credit and find the writ waiting for 
you when you get home ! It ’s ridiculous, but 
it ’s the law.” 

Jimmy’s face was hot and his eyes were too 
bright. 

“ It was not a forgery, Mr. Kirby ! ” he said. 

“ Not a what ? ” said Mr. Kirby, looking 
up with a fine affectation of confusion. “I’m 
not talking about that, Mr. McAuley. Really, 
poor Brassington’s loss is none of our business. 
But if you ’re interested, and if you ’re going 
to see young Brassington, you might tell him 
that his father ’s put the whole thing in my 
hands, and I am going to have details of the 
cheque and who it was made out to to-morrow 
by post at my office.” 

“ Mr. Kirby,” said Jimmy, in the most 
agitated of voices, “ I solemnly swear to God 
that that cheque was not forged ! ” 

Really, Mr. McAuley,” said Mr. Kirby, 
“ I don’t see what you have to do with ” 

“ Yes, but you will see,” interrupted Jimmy 


291 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 

bitterly, “ you will see. To-morrow morn- 
ing ! ” 

“ Come, come,” said Mr. Kirby, “ I can’t 
have all this unofficial information. It isn’t 
fair, you know, not fair to my position as a 
lawyer. If only you ’ll let me know about 
that little sum for damages at Greystones, 
since the landlord is so ” 

“ Mr. Kirby,” burst out the unfortunate 
James, “ the matter will not brook a moment’s 
delay ! That cheque — Mr. Brassington’s 
cheque, the cheque you say was forged — was 
made out to me ! ” 

“ What ! ” shouted Mr. Kirby, springing 
to his feet. 

“ That cheque, Mr. Kirby,” went on James 
firmly, “ was made out to me. I passed it 
through the bank, and I have that money in 
my bank, at least a good deal of it, and I have 
paid it away — my part of it — nearly all to my 
creditors.” 

Then he remembered again that Melba 
would have to pay for the dinner, but it was 
very small comfort. 

Mr. Kirby drew a prolonged breath. 

“ Really, my dear sir ! ” he said. 

“ Yes, Mr. Kirby,” continued Jimmy, “ to 
me. And I have passed it into my account 


292 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 

and I have disbursed the money. I am not 
ashamed of it ; and I will answer for it to any 
man. It was the payment of a just debt, and 
it was given to me by Mr. Brassington himself, 
there ! ” 

“ My dear Mr. McAuley,” began Kirby 
again. 

“ I am telling you the plain truth, and I 
have witnesses who can go into the box and 
swear. Not all that wretched, snivelling 
old fellow can do ” 

“ An old friend, Mr. McAuley,” said Mr. 
Kirby suavely, “ an old friend ! ” 

“ Well,” compromised Jimmy, “ I will say 
Puritan. Not all that old Puritan’s money 
can get over the plain facts. We can swear to 
it, both of us. The place and the time. It was 
the morning after, and it was at Greystones.” 

“ The morning after what ? ” said Mr. 
Kirby. 

“ Tuesday, the morning after that party, 
of course. Exactly a week ago. The date ’s 
on the cheque, and what ’s more, Mr. Kirby, 
I have Mr. Brassington’ s letter signed by him 
on that occasion and admitting the debt and 
his payment of it.” 

“ Really,” said Mr. Kirby, “ indeed ! This 
is most astonishing.” 


293 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“ He was there,” said Jimmy, “ in that 
ridiculous Green Overcoat of his, and he 
pulled the cheque book out of his pocket. At 
least, it was in his pocket,” corrected Jimmy, 
with a careful fear of tripping up over a verbal 
inaccuracy where the law was concerned. 
“ He tried to get out of it, but we wouldn’t 
have it, Mr. Kirby, and so — and so he 
paid.” 

“You are perfectly certain it was Mr. 
Brassington ? ” said Mr. Kirby. 

“No manner of doubt in the world,” said 
Jimmy calmly. “ We got him to come with 
us as he left the party, and we put it before 
him ; and as I tell you, he did hestitate, but 
he paid at last, and it was a just debt. I may 
as well tell you, Mr. Kirby, it was his son’s 
debt. We had lost more than that to our 
friend in the past, and we paid honourably, 
and we weren’t going to be welched.” 

“ After all, Mr. McAuley,” said Mr. Kirby, 
after a little thought, “ I have asked you if 
you are sure it was Mr. Brassington, and the 
thing is important. Was he a tall, rather 
lanky man, with a nervous way with him and 
loosely dressed ? Did he thrust his hands 
into his pockets ? Did he try to talk about 
Philosophy or his being a Philosopher, or 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 

something of that sort ? Had he very large 
feet ? ” 

“Yes, I think,” said Jimmy reminiscently. 
“ Yes, he was tall and spare, and he was 
nervous, distinctly, even violently you might 
say. Yes — ^he had large feet, very, and he 
said something about being a Philosopher or 
Philosophy. And at first he had his hands 
in his pockets — but afterwards you know, 
well ” 

“ Well, look here,” said Mr. Kirby thought- 
fully, “ it was Mr. Brassington as you say — 
tall and spare and very nervous, and on that 
Philosophy crank, which is King Charles’s 
head to him, and in that Green Overcoat of 
his. Oh, it must have been him all right ! 
But why didn’t you go to his house and ask 
him for the cash ? What 's all this business 
about Greystones ? ” 

Jimmy kept silent. At last he said — 

“ That ’s his business, Mr. Kirby, and he 
can tell you that end of the story.” 

“ Well, look here,” said Mr. Kirby, “ I have 
really no right to get anything of this sort out 
of you.” 

\ “ It ’s the truth,” said Jimmy. 

“ Yes, I know,” said Mr. Kirby ; “ but you 
have to be starting for that night mail, and ” 


295 


tHfe GREEN OVERCOAT. 

(he mused) “ I tell you what, I T1 stop that 
ridiculous business about Greystones in the 
morning. I ’ve got to go up to town. Do 
you think you could see me to-morrow in 
town ? What with your father’s public 
position and Mr. Brassington’s, Mr. McAuley, / 
it ’s much better to have the whole of that 
other thing out in private. Couldn’t you come 
early and stay to dine ? ” 

“Yes,” said Jimmy, rising to go, “I could ; 
but wait a minute. I have promised my 
father to go to a big lecture — he wants me to 
take my sister.” 

“ Where ? ” said Mr. Kirby carelessly. 

“At the Research Club,” said Jimmy. 

“ Don’t know who ’s giving it. It ’s about 
ghosts. It ’ll be over by six. Where will you 
be stopping ? ” 

“ I shall be at the Rockingham Hotel,” 
said Mr. Kirby, helping the young man on 
with his coat as they stood at the door. “ It ’s 
close to where the Research Club meets, and 
I ’ll expect you any time from six o’clock 
onwards. I shan’t go out. Good night,” he 
said heartily, shaking Jimmy’s hand with all 
the confidence in the world. “ I don’t under- 
stand it yet, but you ’re both honourable men, 
and I fancy there ’s been some mistake.” 


296 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 

Jimmy reserved his opinion and went off to 
his train. 

The lawyer went back into his study, knelt 
on the floor, lifted the lid of the ottoman 
with his right hand, put the fingers of his left 
upon the open under lip of that piece of 
furniture to steady himself, and gazed 
quizzically and sadly at the Green Overcoat. 

“ A beast ! ” he said. “ A fate-bearing, 
disreputable beast ! ” 

But even as he said it the heavy lid slipped 
from the palm of his right hand. He had but 
just time to withdraw his left hand before it 
crashed down. 

Mr. Kirby got up a little shakily. He was 
a man of imagination, and he winced internally 
as he thought of crushed fingers. 

“ Try that on again ! ” he murmured, 
wagging his head savagely at the Green 
Overcoat where it basked hidden within the 
ottoman ; “ try that on again, and I T1 rip 
you up ! ” 

With that he switched off the light and made 
his way to bed, maturing his plans for to- 
morrow. But he rather wished he had some 
outhouse or other in which to hide the garment. 
He felt a little afraid of all sorts of things — for 
instance, fire. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


In which a Professor professes nothing, a Lecture 
is not delivered, and yet something happens. 

It was the morrow Wednesday, in London, 
at Galton’s Rooms, and near five o’clock. 

Professor Higginson was feeling exceedingly 
nervous. He came into the little room where 
it was customary to receive the Lecturer when 
the Research Club organised one of its great 
functions at Galton’s, and he was not over- 
pleased to see three gentlemen waiting for 
him. He had hoped there would be no one 
but a servant, or at the most the secretary. 
He was holding a little brown bag in his 
hand. It contained his MSS. and a cap and 
gown. He asked whether he was to wear his 
cap and gown. 

“ O — 0 — ah ! I suppose so, what ? ” said 
one of the gentlemen who was beautifully 
groomed, and had iron grey hair, and what is 
more wore a single eye-glass. 

“ That ’s all right, Biggleton, isn’t it ? ” 

He turned to a very portly man, quite bald, 


298 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


who kept his eyes so close shut that one might 
have thought him blind ; but Professor 
Higginson knew at that word that he was 
standing in the presence of Lord Biggleton, 
and he suffered that mixture of pleasure 
and apprehension which Dons suffer in the 
presence of the great. 

He wondered who the first speaker might 
be. If this bald-headed man with eyes shut 
fast like a pig was Lord Biggleton, why then 
the well-groomed man with iron-grey hair and 
the single eye-glass, who was so familiar, 
might be the greatest in the land. 

He was not to be informed. All old 
Biggleton said was — 1 

“ What ’s that. Jack ? Yes," and stead- 
fastly refused to open his eyes ; but Professor 
Higginson, unobservant as he was, could see 
that they were not absolutely fast, but that 
between the upper and the lower lid there 
gleamed an intense and dangerous cunning. 

It was always said that Lord Biggleton 
might have had the Premiership if he had 
chosen, but certainly a man with those eyes 
had reached whatever eminence he cared to 
reach. There was no meeting them. They 
lay in ambush behind the heavy lids, and did 
useful work through the slits beneath. 


299 



Professor Higginson knew at that ivord that he was in 
the presence of Lord Biggleton. 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


All this did not put the Professor at his ease. 
He pulled out his MSS. and let it drop. A 
third man picked it up, and handed it to him 
again with a ready smile. Professor Higginson 
on first coming into the room had taken him 
for a young man, for he had the cut and the 
facial lines of youth ; but as the light from 
the window fell upon him as he picked up the 
papers, the face that smiled was a face well 
over fifty, perhaps nearer sixty. Professor 
Higginson was not a little astonished to see 
the same smile suddenly appearing and dis- 
appearing on the face three or four times about 
nothing in particular, and directed towards no 
one. A little more experience of the world 
would have enabled him to label the features 
and the man, for that smile goes with the 
Ministry of the Fine Arts, and no less a one 
than Sir John Hooker stood before him. But 
Mr. Higginson had got no further than Lord 
Biggleton, that was enough for him ! 

He struggled into his gown with difficulty, 
and wondered whether a fourth man who 
helped him on was a Home Secretary or a 
Field-Marshal or what. 

They made a little procession, Biggleton 
putting upon the Professor’s back a powerful 
pushing hand by way of encouragement, the 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


well-groomed man with the eye-glass saying 
“ What ? ” twice to himself inanely, and the 
Minister for the Fine Arts leading the way 
with a gait like a dromedary’s. 

They passed through a door and a lifted 
curtain, and came into the great room. There 
was a small raised platform to which the 
Professor was guided, the three men walked 
back into the body of the hall, and the 
Professor found himself alone, and without 
friends, gowned, with his body of MSS. before 
him upon a desk, and over-looking three or 
four hundred of the richest and therefore the 
most powerful men and women in England — 
with not a few of their hangers-on. 

In moments of strain sub-conscious im- 
pressions are the strongest, as no one should 
know better than a Professor of Psychology ; 
and Professor Higginson was free to confess in 
later years that in the first moments of nervous 
agony which he suffered as he looked over that 
mass of Cabinet Ministers, fine ladies, actresses, 
money-lenders, black-mailers, courtesans and 
touts, the chief thing that impressed him was 
the enormous size of the women’s hats ! 

He ' grasped the desk firmly, cleared his 
throat, and began to read. 

“ The hope of a life beyond the grave '' 


302 



THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


Here Professor Higginson lifted his head 
and fumbled for a moment with his collar- 
stud. It was an unfortunate, it was a tragic 
move ! For as he lifted his eyes during that 
one instant he saw a sight that froze his blood. 
Squeezing with many apologies through the 
standing mass at the end and sides of the great 
room was a very well-dressed young gentle- 
man, close-knit, dark in features, an athlete, 
and the features above the smart coat and 
collar were features that he knew ! 

The form edged its way, bearing before it 
with exquisite skill an exquisite top hat, 
inverted. It was making for the front row 
of chairs, where one or two places still re- 
mained reserved and unused, and, as that form 
advanced, subliminal fear — the Oldest of the 
Gods — towered up over Professor Higginson’s 
soul. It was Jimmy! 

The young man had made his way to the 
front row of chairs ; he had sat down ; he had 
carefully deposited his hat beneath it. The 
mass of those who govern us were beginning 
to turn their faces, some in annoyance, some in 
amusement, towards him — the two duchesses, 
the four actresses, the eight courtesans had 
already lifted to their eyes long-handled 
spectacles of scorn, when the dreadful little 


TEE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


silence was broken by the Professor mumbling 
once more mechanically with eyes staring 
before him his opening sentence — 

“ The hope of a life beyond the grave ” 

The young man had looked up and had seen 
the Professor’s face ! The Professor had seen 
the sudden recognition in the young man’s 
eyes ! 

That day he read no more. With a curious 
unformed cry, such as a hunted animal will 
give when it is too suddenly roused from its 
retreat, he snatched his papers up, stumbled 
down the three steps of the platform, bolted 
through the curtain and the door — and was off ! 

He was off, racing through the little ante- 
room, he was flying down the stone staircase 
three steps at a time. The Subliminal Self 
was out on holiday ; it was working top- 
notch, and Lord ! how it drove the man ! 

In the room thus abruptly abandoned by 
its principal figure there was confusion and 
not a little of that subdued delight with 
which the rich always hail some break in the 
monotony of their lives. 

Most of the men were standing up, the less 
bulky of the ladies had followed their example, 
perhaps a hundred people were talking at 
once, when, not thirty seconds after the 

305 


20 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


Professor had performed his singular gym- 
nastic feat, one in that audience had put two 
and two together, and had been struck by an 
inspiration from heaven. And the fine frocks, 
and the good coats and trousers and the top 
hats, and the lorgnettes and the single eye- 
glasses got a sharp second shock at seeing 
Jimmy, who had so lately arrived, leap with 
the quick and practised gesture of an athlete 
to the platform, cut across it like a hare, and 
disappear in his turn through the curtain and 
the door beyond. 

He was after him ! . . . Down the long 

corridor which ran along the basement of 
Galton’s, to the side door where professionals 
entered, tore the Professor. He had reached 
its end, when, glancing over his shoulder, he 
saw that face he would not see, and as he 
passed the door-keeper he shouted in an 
agonised cry, “ Stop him ! ” and plunged into 
the street. 

The door-keeper was the father of a family, 
a heavy drinker, and a man of peace. But for 
all he. knew there was a shilling in it some- 
where, and he stood up — ah, how unwisely ! 
— to meet the charge of that young Cambridge 
bone and muscle which was thundering down 
the passage in pursuit. 


306 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


He spread out his arms awkwardly to 
enforce his message of delay, and before he 
knew what had happened he was down on the 
stone floor, holding desperately to something 
living that struggled above him, but himself 
oblivious of his name and place. As he came 
to, the first thing he was conscious of was some 
considerable pain in the right arm upon which 
he lay. The next was a sharp memory of foot- 
ball in early youth, and the next was the sight 
of an over-well-dressed young man holding a 
top hat in his clenched hand, and sprinting 
a hundred yards away up the street. 

The delay had been one of only a few 
seconds, but ten seconds is a hundred yards. 

Jimmy saw a little knot of people running 
ahead. They took a turning and were lost to 
him ; but Jimmy was too eager to suffer a 
check. Either Brassington was not Brassing- 
ton, or there were two Brassingtons, or there 
was no Brassington, or pursy old merchants 
were Dons, or the world was standing on its 
head ! But anyhow, one man knew the truth, 
and that one man must be gripped tight, and 
the truth had out of him — quick — quick ! 

Painful alternatives followed through 
Jimmy's mind as he ran — ^prison, suicide, 
enlistment — for in such an order of evils does 


307 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


luxury put the British Army. But one 
obvious purpose stamped itself upon him : 
the man who knew must be got hold of, 
privately and securely, and must tell him all — 
and must tell him soon. He picked up the 
scent again from a gentleman leaning against 
an area railing (who sold it for a trifling sum), 
and hotly followed up his quarry — not two 
minutes behind. 

At top speed, hatless and gowned, clutching 
his notes, the tall and lanky Don careered, 
as might a camel career whom some massive 
lion pursues in the deserts of the East. Not 
often are the streets of London afforded so 
great a spectacle as that of a Philosopher, 
muddily splashed, gowned and hatless, with 
long loose legs and wild head in air, racing 
with a mob at his heels. 

Those Londoners who happened to be at 
once at lesiure and unconstrained by conven- 
tion — ^news-boys and boot-blacks, loungers, 
rambling thieves — pelted after him in a small 
but increasing crowd. Mr Higginson heard 
their steps, and, what w’as worse, he saw 
amongst them a policeman. He dashed down 
an alley that opened to his left, turned up a 
court, and ran to ground with a promptitude 
that was amazing. For in the little court 


308 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


and under a dark arch of it he had seen the 
swing-door of a low and exceedingly ill- 
fivoured public-house. 

Once within the refuge, he sat down gasping. 
An elderly woman crowned with false hair 
was watching him severely from behind the 
bar as he sank, with head thrown back, and 
leaning upon the wooden partition attempting 
to recover himself. Outside he heard to his 
immense relief the thundering feet go past. 
They had missed his doubling ! 

Mind speaks to mind in moments of strong 
emotion without the medium of words. 
Professor Higginson recognised that unless he 
drank something he would be thrown to the 
wolves. He had never been in a public- 
house in his life. He had no conception of its 
habits. But the woman’s eye was strong 
upon him, and he had to give an order. He 
gave it in this form — 

“ I think I should like — no, I think on the 
whole I should prefer a glass of, let us say, 
ale.” 

“ Four Ale ? ” said the woman severely. 

“ No, one,” said Professor Higginson, 
whereat she fired suddenly and said — 

“ None of your lip, young man ! ” (Pro- 
fessor Higginson was in his fifty-seventh year, 

309 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


and looked it.) “ None of your funny 
business ! Who are yer, any way ? I 've half 

a mind ” but the thought of profit recalled 

her. 

She had already seized the handle of the 
pump and drawn him his glass, when the noise 
of feet returned, less tumultuous, and an 
exceedingly unpleasing voice was saying that 
there was no thoroughfare. An official -sound- 
ing voice was replying with dignity, and 
Professor Higginson went to pieces — inwardly 
altogether, outwardly not a little — ^when he 
saw entering through the swing-door a police- 
man, a policeman who, when he looked the 
Philosopher up and down with due care, asked 
him, “What ’s this ? ” and received no coherent 
reply. 

“ That ’s what I was asking myself,” said 
the woman with the false hair vigorously. 
“ Come in here all of a blow, muttering, with 
something wicked in his eyes, as you can see. 
I was ordering of him out when you came 
in ! ” 

Professor Higginson had exhausted that vein 
of invention which the Evil One had hitherto 
so liberally supplied. He sank upon the dirty 
little beer-stained stool behind him, and 
jibbered at the avenger of the law. 


310 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“ I 've lost my memory,” he said. 

“ Lost your what ? ” said the policeman, 
half threatening and half in doubt, hesitating 
in his venal mind between a really good cop 
and the disastrous results of interfering with 
a toff ; when, before a reply could be given 
to so simple a query, an authoritative voice 
and strong step were heard together pushing 
through the crowd outside, and there came 
into the mean place the excellently dressed 
figure and strong young face of Jimmy. 

They say that the youngest generals make 
the best tacticians, though sometimes the 
worst strategists. J immj'- acted like lightning. 

“ There you are ! ” he said genially to Mr. 
Higginson — and a little shriek automatically 
cut itself short in the Professor’s throat and 
ended in a gurgle. 

“ There you are ! ” he said again, laying a 
powerful left hand upon Mr. Higginson’s 
shoulder — and it was pitiful to see the 
Pragmatist shrink as he did so. 

Jimmy turned round and gazed in a pained 
but authoritative way at the policeman, who 
instinctively touched his helmet, recognising 
the master-class. 

“ It 's my father, officer,” said Jimmy, 
gently and sadly. 



f 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“I'm sure,” said the policeman, finding a 
little coin as large as a sixpence, but much 
more valuable, which had suddenly appeared 
in his great palm, “I’m glad you 've come, 
sir ! I was worrying what to do ! ” 

“Oh, you needn 't worry ! ” said Jimmy 
kindly again ; then, with a pained look, he 
added, “ It 's not so serious as it looks ! ” 

He almost broke down, but he struggled 
manfully, and the policeman followed him 
with solemn respect. 

“ It will be all right. It 's over-work.” 

' He turned to Higginson and said with 
pathetic reverence, “Come, dad,” and he 
exercised upon the Professor’s arm so authori- 
tative a grip that instinctively that Philosopher 
rose. 

Conflicting doubts and fears were in that 
academic mind, and when the doubts and fears 
in the academic mind run not in one current, 
then is the academic mind so confused that it 
is impotent. If he fought or struggled he 
would be arrested. If he was arrested and 
in the hands of the law there might come 
out at any moment ... oh. Lord ! and 
if he acquiesced — ^what then ? What would 
that young fiend do to him ? Where would 
he take him ? Between the two he did 

313 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


nothing, but stood helpless there, hating 
Jimmy, hating the whole organisation of 
British credit, hating its cheque books and 
its signatures, hating the majestic fabric of 
his country’s law, hating its millions, hating 
the wretched mass of poverty that waited 
tip-toe and expectant outside, and now and 
then peeped in through the swing-doors. 

As Jimmy led the older man out firmly by 
the arm the little mob would have followed. 
But the policeman who has touched coin is a 
different animal from a policeman before 
feeding time. He savagely struck at the 
dirty lads and frowsy women who made up the 
little assembly, and cleared them off in loud 
tones, aiming a violent kick which just missed 
the little child who dodged it. The gentlemen 
must be left in peace. He touched his helmet 
again to the said gentlemen. He very tact- 
fully sauntered slowly behind as J immy 
hurried his prize rapidly down the alley 
and into the broad street outside. 

A quarter of a mile away, or a little more, the 
swell crowd would be coming out of Gabon’s. 
Five minutes in the open street with a gowned, 
hatless figure would mean another crowd. 
Jimmy decided again with admirable rapidity. 

“ Come into the Rockingham with me,” 


314 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


he said, still keeping his arm tightly linked in 
the Professor’s. 

“ To the where ? ” said Mr. Higginson, 
recognising the name. “What do you want 
with me ? ” He was not exactly dragging 
back, but sending signals of resistance through 
the nervous gestures he made. 

“ Simply to talk with you ; only ten 
minutes, Mr. Brassington.” 

“ I am not Brassington.” 

“Yes. I know. At least, I must see you for 
ten minutes,” said Jimmy, rapidly making for 
the fine great portal of the Rockingham. 
That great portal meant safety and retreat, 
and it was not one hundred yards up the 
broad pavement. 

Professor Higginson yielded. They w'ent past 
the magnificent porter, through the lounge ; 
they were stared at a little, but no more. 

Jimmy took his capture to a corner of the 
smoking-room, sat him down in comfort, and 
asked him w’hat he drank. 

The Professor, with a confused memory of 
a recent experience, muttered, “ A little ale,” 
but when it came he did not drink it, for ale 
was something which he could not touch. 
Jimmy, drinking brandy, spoke to him in a 
low tone, and with enormous earnestness. 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“ Professor Higginson,” he began, “ there ’s 
been some bad mistake, some very bad 
mistake.” 

“ I don’t understand what you mean,” said 
Professor Higginson doggedly. 

“ Good heavens ! ” said Jimmy, really 
startled, and looking him full in the face. 
“You mean to say you don’t . . .” 

“ I lost my memory,” muttered Professor 
Higginson savagely, looking at the floor, “ I 
should have thought you would have heard 
about it. I lost it,” he said, with rising voice 
and passion, “ after the brutal treatment ” 

“ Oh, then, you remember that ! ” said 
Jimmy coolly. 

“ Dimly,” replied the Professor through his 
set teeth. He was getting to feel ugly. 
“ Very dimly. And after that my memory 
fails altogether.” 

“Well,” said Jimmy, leaning back at his 
ease, and drinking his brandy, “ I ’ll refresh it 
for you. We gave you your cheque book, Mr. 
Brassington ” 

“ I tell you my name ’s not Brassington,” 
whispered the Professor in a mixture of anger 
and fear. “ If you talk like that at the top of 
your voice someone ’ll hear you ! ” 

_ “ You ’re not Mr. Brassington ? ” said 


316 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


Jimmy, eyeing him steadily, “That’s what 
you said on the night when you — when you 
lost your memory.’’ 

“Is it ? ” answered the Philosopher 
sullenly. “ Then I told the truth. Damn it 
all, man,’’ he said, exploding, “ isn’t it plain 
who I am ? Didn’t you see the people in that 
room ? And don’t you ” (here a recollection 
of his own importance swelled him), “ don’t 
you know what my position is in the Guelph 
University ? ” 

“ Certainly, Professor Higginson,’’ said 
Jimmy, in exactly the same tone in which 
he had said “ Mr. Brassington ’’ a minute 
before. •“ I quite understand. Unfortunately, 
during that terrible mental trouble of yours 
you signed something ” 

“ Then it doesn’t count,” said Professor 
Higginson, shaking his head very rapidly from 
side to side like a dog coming out of a pond, 
“ it doesn’t count ! ” he said again in a still 
higher tone, “ it doesn’t count ! I won’t have 
it ! I don’t understand a word you say ! ” 
and he sank back with every symptom of 
exhaustion. 

“ There ’s nothing to get nervous about. 
Professor Higginson,” said Jimmy quietly, as 
he leant forward to emphasise his words. 


317 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“ Supposing you did sign something, it 
wouldn’t be any harm, would it ? As a 

matter of fact, you signed a cheque ” 

“ Doesn’t count ! ” said Professor Higginson, 
staring in front of him, and beginning to get 
a little yellow. 

“ No, of course it doesn’t,” said Jimmy sooth- 
ingly, “ but it was Mr. Brassington’s cheque.” 

“ I don’t believe it ! ” said Professor 
Higginson, still yellower, “ and it doesn’t 
count, anyhow ! I ’ve taken legal advice, and 
I know it doesn’t count ! ” 

" Oh, you ’ve taken legal advice — about 
something you don’t remember ? ” said 
Jimmy with a curious smile. “ However, it ’s 
silly to go on like this. The point is,” he 
added rather earnestly, “ that that cheque 
was made out to me.” 

“ Then, I ’ve got you ! ” said the worthy 
Don triumphantly, though in truth he had 
but the vaguest idea of how or why, but he 
wanted to keep his end up in general, and he 
thought the phrase was useful. 

“Yes,” said Jimmy, with a glance of quiet 
affection and control, “ and I ’ve got you ; 
and what ’s more, I ’ve got a witness. Your 
unfortunate loss of memory prevents your 
knowing that. Professor Higginson.” 


318 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 

The Professor’s lips were framing once more 
the ritual formula, “ It doesn’t count,” when 
his eyes fixed with a horrid stare upon the 
short but pleasing figure of Mr. Kirby, which 
walked into the room, nodded genially at him, 
then as genially at Jimmy. 

The solicitor drew up a chair and sat down 
before the two men. 

“ Didn’t know you knew each other,” he 
said in his cheerful, rather jerky voice. 

“ We don’t ” had almost framed itself on the 
Professor’s lips, when he thought better of it, 
and to his horror heard Jimmy say that the 
Professor and he had met on board ship in the 
Mediterranean some years ago — and how glad 
he was to come across him again. 

“It is a funny thing how small the world 
is,” said Mr. Kirb}^ simply. “ You meet a 
man under one set of circumstances, and you 
get to know him quite intimately — so that you 
will remember him all your life — and then you 
think never to see him again, when he turns up 
quite unexpectedly, doesn’t he ? . . . You 
know Mr. Brassington ? ” he added genially, 
looking at the Professor. 

“ I — I — I — I know the name,” said the 
wretched man. 

^ “ Oh, you must know the man himself,” 


3>9 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


said Mr. Kirby in his heartiest manner. 
“ He 's one of the best men in your town, and 
he ’s got a particular devotion to intellectual 
things, you know. You know him, I think ? '' 
he continued, turning round to the younger 
man. 

“Yes,” said Jimmy solemnly, “ yes ; at 
least, I don’t know that I ever met Mr. 
Brassington, but I was at college with his son, 
you know that, Mr. Kirby.” 

“ You don’t know him ? ” said Mr. Kirby, 
in mild astonishment. “ Well, you ’ll be glad 
to meet him, he likes young men ; and between 
you and me, he ’s a useful kind of man to know. 
You know his son ? I’m sure he ’s talked of 
you often enough ! I ought to remember 
that ! ” 

Jimmy winced. There was an interval of 
silence, during which all three men were 
occupied apparently with idle thoughts. It 
was broken by Mr. Kirby saying, as he looked 
at both his acquaintances in turn — 

“ Mr. Brassington and his son are in the 
hotel now. I ’ll go and fetch them.” 


320 


CHAPTER XVIIL 


In which the Green Overcoat triumphs ani 
comes home. 

In a couple of minutes Mr. Kirby returned. 
He had Mr. Brassington closely locked by 
the right arm, and was walking easily 
with him into the room. Booby sheepishly 
followed. 

“ Mr. McAuley,” said Mr. Kirby genially, 
“ this is Mr. Brassington.” 

Young men do not control their faces well 
(unless they are the sons of scoundrels and 
have inherited their fathers’ talents). Jimmy 
looked exactly like a man who knows nothing 
of the sea and has just come to the lump on 
the bar. 

Mr. Brassington gave a very violent move- 
ment, which Mr. Kirby, his arm securely 
linked in his friend’s, checked with a wrench 
of iron. 

“ You don’t know Professor Higginson, I 
think, do you, Brassington ? ”> 




321 


Mr, McAidey** said Mr. Kirhy genially, ‘‘ this 
is Mr. Brassington.” 



THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


He introduced the two men, and the Philo- 
sopher knew more of the Merchant than the 
Merchant did of the Philosopher. 

“ And now,” continued Mr. Kirby plea- 
santly, but a little pompously (it was not in 
his nature to be pompous, but the occasion 
needed it), “ now we all go upstairs. I ’ve 
asked one of Mr. McAuley’s friends to dinner. 
He is also a friend of yours, Mr. Algernon,” he 
said, turning to Booby kindly. “ I don’t 
know him myself, but Mr. McAuley vouches 
for him, and that ought to be enough for us, 
eh ? By the way, just before we dine, would 
you mind coming into my sitting-room, all of 
you, there ’s something I want to discuss — 
something that you all want to hear, I ’m 
sure, something political,” he added, lest 
panic should seize the more guilty of the tribe. 

He led the procession upstairs. Melba was 
waiting in the hall. Jimmy picked him up 
on the way, and squeezed his hand for courage. 

They all filed into Mr. Kirby’s private 
sitting-room, and they found it conveniently 
large. 

As for their host, he began fussing about 
like a man who is arranging a meeting of 
directors, and finally took his seat at the head 
of the large table. 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“ I think you ’d better sit here, Brassing- 
ton,” he said, pointing to a chair on his right. 
“ And you. Professor Higginson, would you 
come here ? ” pointing to the chair upon his 
left. “ The rest,” he added abruptly, “ can 
sit where they like. My lord ! it ’s beginning 
to rain ! ” 

They sat awkwardly round him. Mr. 
Brassington, at least, was used enough to his 
irrelevancy not to notice the last remark, but 
Professor Higginson stared. He had had 
enough to do with mental aberration in the 
last few days ; he didn’t want any more 
of it. 

“ It ’s beginning to rain,” continued Mr. 
Kirby, turning to Mr. Brassington, “ and 
I ’m sure you didn’t bring your Overcoat. 
It ’s May, and you didn’t think you ’d want 
it. Well, I ’ve taken the liberty of an old 
friend, and I ’ve got it here ; it ’s hanging 
up.” He jerked his head backwards. 

They followed his gesture wi1h their eyes, 
and sure enough the Green Overcoat was 
hanging there ponderously and silently upon 
a peg. It had one wid and one purpose, and 
it had accomplished it : it had found its 
master. 

” You ’re a careless fellov/, Brassington,” 


32 < 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 

said Kirby, hitting that Capitalist rather 
affectedly upon the shoulder. “ Do you 
know you left your cheque book in the 
pocket ? ” 

" Yes,” said Mr. Brassington not very 
pleasantly, “ I did.” 

Mr. Kirby left not a moment for 
thought. 

“ Well, gentlemen, I haven’t come to talk 
about that. I ’ve come to give you some 
good news. I saw Hogg this morning. You 
all know Hogg ? He ’s the man who handles 
the dibs at Westminster. He ’s a really good 
fellow, collects stuffed frogs, has hundreds of 
’em ! Well, they ’ve done the straight thing 
at last, and ” (turning to Mr. Brassington) 
“ they ’ve put you in the Birthday Honours, 
Brassington ! ” 

Mr. Brassington jumped. 

“ It ’s a Baronetcy ! ” 

Then at last Mr. Kirby was silent. 

It grew clearer and clearer to Mr. Brassing- 
ton that the presence of all these gentlemen 
round the table was not needed ; but in the 
course of the next few minutes he had cause 
to change his mind. 

Professor Higginson, as the only elderly 
man present, thought it was his duty to say, 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


“ I congratulate you, sir,” to which Bras- 
sington answered shortly, “ Yes.” 

Mr. Kirby stroked his chin. 

“ Professor Higginson,” he said pleasantly, 
“ why did you forge that cheque ? ” 

“ Wha — ” half gasped, half roared the 
Philosopher, and then he made a great gulping 
noise with his throat. 

The clock on the mantelshelf ticked loudly. 
Jimmy tried to sit still. Mr. Brassington 
didn’t try to do anything of the sort. He had 
half risen, when Mr. Kirby with a firm hand 
pushed him back into his chair. 

For a minute nothing was said. Mr. Kirby 
occupied the minute by tapping slowly at 
intervals with his fountain pen upon the 
table. At the end of the interval Professor 
Higginson saved himself by speech. 

' He pushed his chair back from him, and 
stood up as a man does to address the Flap- 
Doodles at a political meeting. 

“ Mr. Brassington,” he said, ignoring all 
the others, “ it was I who forged your name. 
I was imprisoned, I was tortured, I was 
constrained by these ” (and his voice 
trembled as he pointed to Jimmy and 
Melba), “ these two young scoundrels, sir, 
these ’* 


326 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


f “ That T1 do. Professor Higginson,” said 
Mr. Kirby, “ it ’s actionable.” 

And at that dread word from a lawyer the 
Professor sat down defeated. i 

“ Kirby,” said Mr. Brassington, turning to 
his friend, addressing him alone, and trying 
to speak without excitement in a low tone, 
“ I don’t understand.” 

“ No, Brassington, you wouldn’t,” said 
Kirby kindly, turning as familiarly to him. 
“You see. Professor Higginson here borrowed 
your coat.” t 

“ He ?” began Mr. Brassington ex- 

plosively. ^ 

“ Yes, yes,” continued Mr. Kirby, “ don’t 
mix up big things with little, that ’s what he 
did — any man would have done it. It was 
a terrible night, and someone had taken his 
cape. He just borrowed your coat. It was 
that night at Perkin’s, you remember? The 
night you were going to Belgium and didn’t — 
ten days ago ? ” ' 

“ Oh, yes, I remember well enough,” said 
Mr. Brassington bitterly. 

“ Well, there you are,” said Mr. Kirby with 
the utmost simplicity. “ It ’s all quite 
natural. Just a misunderstanding. Always 
happening. They thought he was you. Eh ? 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


So, why ! they just took him off and kid- 
napped him. That ’s all ! ” 

All this explanation Mr. Kirby delivered in 
the easy tones of the man of the world who is 
setting things to rights and preventing 
hysterical people from tearing each other’s 
eyes out. 

“ There you are,” went on Mr. Kirby, 
flourishing his hands gently in front of him, 
“ there you are ! Mr. McAuley couldn’t get 
his money. Thought he ’d got you. Cheque 
book, no conscious fraud. . . 

Here Mr. Brassington was no longei ‘ to be 
controlled. He pushed back his chair, leant 
over the table, looked at poor Jimmy with a 
Day of Judgment look, and said with intense 
determination — 

“You shall answer for it, sir, and I will not 
listen to your father or to your friends.” 
t; Mr. Kirby looked up at the ceiling, then he 
looked straight down the table, then he looked 
up at Mr. Brassington, and Mr. Brassington 
sat down. 

“ Brassington,” said Kirby, when he had 
got his audience, “ you have no action 
against Mr. McAuley, your action is against 
Professor Higginson. If you bring it. Pro- 
fessor Higginson is ruined, and your son 


328 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


is besmirched, and you look a fool, and the 
Government has done with you ; and, 
Brassington, remember that you owed that 
money.” 

“ I did nothing of the sort,” said the 
merchant sternly. 

” Father,” said the wretched Booby, “ I ’d 
won more than that off Jimmy, I had, really ! 
And when I lost back again, unless he 'd 
been paid I don’t know what would have 
happened. I ’d have cut my throat, father,’’ 
said Booby. 

He meant it, but it was exceedingly un- 
likely. 

James McAuley for the first time defended 
his honour. 

” Upon my soul, sir, I thought that I was 

dealing with you, and, good God, if a debt 
>> 

Mr. Kirby intervened. 

“ Be quiet, Mr. McAuley,” he said authorita- 
tively, “ you are a young man, and I am 
trying to save you. Brassington,” he con- 
tinued, turning to his friend, and still talking 
in a strict, authoritative tone, ” the money is 
irrecoverable. Your son had won it, and his 
winnings had gone in University debts. I 
know what they are. His friend won it back 


329 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


— he was still a loser, mind — and .a,t once he 
settled debts of his own, which he could not 
bear. You have nothing to recover but 
revenge, and if you take that revenge you 
publicly ruin your own son, you make yourself 
a laughing stock, you throw away your future 
honours and his, and you disgrace a man 
of high Academic distinction whom you know 
perfectly well to have acted only weakly and 
foolishly. You or I might have acted in 
precisely the same fashion. He has not had 
a penny of your money.” 

“ I am the loser,” said Mr. Brassington 
quietly. “ I have lost through ridicule and 
I have lost materially — I have lost Two 
Thousand Pounds.” 

“ The Government,” said Mr. Kirby, with 
a sudden change of tone to the commonplace, 
“ inform me, Brassington, that you ’ve 
planned a very generous act. They inform 
me — anyhow, Hogg informed me this morn- 
ing, or, to be more accurate, I informed Hogg 
— that, as the most j rominent citizen of 
Ormeston, you have put Ten Thousand 
Pounds at the disposal of Professor Higginson, 
whose present fame throughout the world ” 
(he bowed pleasantly to the Don, who was fool 
enough to bow in return) ‘ T need not — er-*-dwell 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


upon — you have put Ten Thousand Pounds, I 
say, at his disposal for Research work in the 
magnificent field of Subliminal Intimations of 
a Future Life, in which he is at this moment 
our chief pioneer.” 

“ I ? ” said the bewildered Brassington, 
catching the table. “ I promised Professor 
Higginson £10,000 for Research Work ? ” 

- Yes, you,” said Mr. Kirby firmly ; “ it ’ll 
be in the papers to-morrow, and very right 
the Government were,” he continued, “ to 
recognise generosity of that sort by a 
Baronetcy! Hogg told me he heard it was 
only a thousand or two, but I gave him the 
real figures.” 

“ But I never ” began Mr. Brass- 

ington. 

“ Well, there you are,” interrupted Mr. 
Kirby in a matter-of-fact tone. “ They think 
it, and that 's the important thing. Yoti, 
of course,” and here he turned to Professor 
Higginson, you will never see that money. 
It isn’t there.” 

“No,” said the Professor humbly. 

A German in the livery of Cinderella’s 
coachmen solemnly entered the room and 
told them in broken English that the dinne? 
was served. 


331 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


Mr. Kirby rose briskly, and they all rose 
with him. 

He went to the Green Overcoat, held it up 
before him with both hands, and said to Mr. 
Brassington — 

“ Now, Brassington, which is it to 
be?” 

The Merchant, not knowing what he did, 
slipped into the familiar garment. 

How warm was its fur, how ancient its 
traditional comfort about his person ! What 
a companion ! 

“ I leave it to you, Kirby,” he said in a 
changed voice. ” I ’ve only to move and 
I shall do harm all round, and if I sit 
tight I save eight thousand pounds — and 
I win.” 

They were moving to the door, when sud- 
denly Mr. Brassington added — 

” Good Heavens ! what am I doing in this 
coat ? I thought I was going out ! ” 

” Never mind,” said Mr. Kirby, ” take it 
off again. Familiar things remain. They 
are the only things that do.” 

And sure enough the bargain held. 

♦ * * ♦ 

Now as to what followed. Reader, or as I 


332 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. 


hope Readers (for it would be a pity to have 
only one), I am too tired to tell you much, 
and there is also an excellent rule that when 
you Ve done telling a story you should tack 
nothing on. 

How the miserable Professor was deluged 
with begging letters ; how he nearly went 
mad until Babcock suggested a plan ; how 
that plan was to pretend that he had left all 
the ten thousand pounds to the University 
upon his death and could not touch it ; how 
his colleagues marvelled that with this new 
fortune he went on plodding as industriously 
as ever ; how Sir John Brassington secretly 
but thoroughly enjoyed his Baronetcy ; how 
Mr. Kirby delivered three addresses for 
nothing upon Racial Problems, two in 
Ormeston and one in the East End of London ; 
how Professor Higginson was compelled for 
many years to review the wildest books 
about spooks, and to lecture until he was as 
thin as a rail (often for nothing) upon the 
same subject — all these things you will have 
to read in some other book, which I most 
certainly do not mean to write, and which 
I do not think anybody else will write for 
you. 

How the Guelph University looked wheij 


333 


THE GREEN OVERCOAT. • 

it found there was no Ten Thousand' !]^6un(^s 
at all after Professor isigginson's death none 
of us know, for the old idiot is not yet dead. 
How they will look does not matter in the 
least, for the whole boiling of them are only 
people in a story, and there is an end of 
them. 


-THE ENto. 


}. W. Arrowsmith Ltd., Printers, Quay btreet, Bristpl, £n^!an4. 







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